AirAsia jet took 'steep climb' before crash

 

Radar data being examined by investigators appeared to show that AirAsia flight QZ8501 made an "unbelievably" steep climb before it crashed, possibly pushing it beyond the Airbus A320's limits, said a source familiar with the probe's initial findings.

The data was transmitted before the aircraft disappeared from the screens of air traffic controllers in Jakarta on Sunday, added the source, who declined to be identified.

"So far, the numbers taken by the radar are unbelievably high. This rate of climb is very high, too high. It appears to be beyond the performance envelope of the aircraft," he said.

The source added that the data on which those assumptions had been made were incomplete. Colleagues and friends of the Indonesian captain on board have described him as an experienced and professional pilot.

The preliminary findings sharpen the focus on the role bad weather and the crew's reaction to storms and clouds in the area had to play in the plane's crash into the Java Sea which killed all 162 people on board.

Finding the six-year-old plane's cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and flight data recorder (FDR), more commonly known as black boxes, was vital to complement the radar data already available.

"With the CVR and FDR, we can establish what went on in the cockpit and what was going on with the aircraft. We can conclude if the radar information is accurate," added the source.

Climbing too slowly?

At 6.12am on Sunday, 36 minutes after taking off from Surabaya's Juanda Airport on a flight to Singapore, the pilot asked for permission to climb to 38,000ft from 32,000ft and deviate to the left to avoid bad weather.

Two minutes later, Jakarta responded by asking QZ8501 to go left seven miles and climb to 34,000ft. There was no response from the cockpit. The aircraft was still detected by the ATC's radar before disappearing at 6.18am.

An image that was reportedly leaked from AirNav Indonesia, which manages the country's air space, and shared on several websites, appeared to show QZ8501 at an altitude of 36,300ft and climbing at a speed of 353 knots.

The source declined to confirm if that image was accurate. Officials from AirNav Indonesia declined to comment.

Two veteran pilots told Reuters that, if accurate, the image and information released so far pointed to the fact that the aircraft may have climbed suddenly and then lost speed.

This can result in the aircraft stalling in mid-air before plunging to the sea, they said.

One pilot explained that an A320 would cruise at a speed of around Mach 0.78 while at an altitude of 32,000ft. That translates into roughly 516 knots.

"If you encounter turbulence, you go slower at what we call the turbulence penetration speed to get through it. If you climb to avoid turbulence, you slow down to have a better climb rate.

"That could be around Mach 0.76," he said. "But if you climb suddenly and start to lose speed, you will stall."

Severe weather

The source close to the probe said other aircraft in the area at the time of the crash were flying at higher altitudes.

Aircraft tracking website flightradar24.com said that they were at between 34,000 and 39,000 feet.

"We know that there was severe local weather and big clouds. But they (the other planes) were higher and did not appear to encounter any major problems. We want to look into that too," added the source.

Industry sources told Reuters that there could be parallels between this incident and the crash of Air France flight AF447 in 2009.

The investigation into that Airbus A330 showed that the co-pilot lost speed readings due to icing on the airframe.

His panic reaction meant that he kept trying to climb despite repeated stall warnings, and the crew failed to recognize the situation, eventually sending the aircraft plunging into the Atlantic.

Incidents like these show that the margin for error at higher altitudes is smaller than at takeoff or lower down, say industry experts.

They add that the A320's systems usually prevent pilots from doing anything outside usual safe flight parameters.

But these protections can be disabled in some circumstances, handing control to the pilots and leaving it to manual flying skills.

- Reuters

Dr M's men trade notes on Najib's poor PR

 

Since Dr Mahathir Mohamad went public with his criticism of Najib Abdul Razak, two of the former prime minister’s strongmen have consistently trained their guns on the current prime minister.

Zainuddin Maidin and A Kadir Jasin, both senior newsmen, have also shared their thoughts on the recent controversy surrounding Najib playing golf with US President Barack Obama in Hawaii as severe floods hit Malaysia.

After coming under fire for what Najib later described as “golf diplomacy”, he promptly returned to visit the affected areas.

Zainuddin (left), the former top editor of Utusan Malaysia, lamented on the poor response of the prime minister’s communication unit in handling the crisis.

In his blog today, he posted a response from Kadir, who was the former New Straits Times group chief editor, to him on this matter.

Kadir had agreed with Zainuddin, who is popularly known as Zam, that the communication unit should have acted swiftly to issue a statement.

Flow of information is important

“But I am certain you know who heads this unit and what are their expertise in the issue of nerve war,” he told his longtime friend.

Kadir recalled that he and several senior journalists had met with Najib before he became prime minister, and one of the things mentioned was the importance in handling the flow of information.

He also reminded Zainuddin of editors meeting with Mahathir when the latter became prime minister.

“Behind the curtains, we were allowed to discuss and debate openly. We agreed and disagreed (then),” Kadir (right) said.

As for Najib, the veteran newsman pointed out that the current prime minister has a battalion of officers and media advisers, including those from overseas. 

“Perhaps because there are too many and they are loyal to and fearful of various quarters, there is no consensus on how to deal with a problem or crisis,” he said.

Kadir also claimed that editors and journalists no longer have “absolute power” and confided in him that they are forced to “bow to many wahyu (orders from above)”.

“Imagine if not all the orders favour the PM. What if there are enemies within (api dalam sekam?” he said.

Najib is often lambasted for relying too much on his advisers, whom critics in Umno claim are leading him in the wrong direction.

Pressure mounts on PM to confirm Rosmah gossip

Blogger Shahbudin says the public has to be told whether she is using the government jet to continue with her holiday.

FMT

KUALA LUMPUR: The issue of Rosmah Mansor using the official government jet has again become the subject of gossip, and joining the chatter is Shahbudin Husin, a harsh government critic and a blogger with a large following.

In his latest blog entry, Shahbudin notes that Najib returned from his holiday without his wife and that he landed in an Air Force jet although he and his family left for the United States in the government’s private aircraft.

He asks for official confirmation that Rosmah is still holidaying in the US, repeating questions asked in an official press release by PKR Youth: Why didn’t Najib return in the official jet? Is it true that the jet is now in Indianapolis in the American Midwest? Who is using the jet?

He says the public needs the answers to these questions because it appears that public funds are being misused. “The use of an Air Force jet to bring Najib home of course doubles the cost,” he adds.

He says that although Najib has somewhat mitigated his error of going on a holiday in the midst of the flood crisis by cutting the vacation short, he has committed a worse mistake in allowing his wife to use the official jet because she doesn’t have the right to it and because it involves public funds.

He implies that this could be the reason why some ministers were defying the Prime Minister’s order for them to cut their vacation short to deal with the flood crisis.

“Rosmah has used the official jet several times for personal purposes and it seems that no one can stop her,” he says. “This time it is used for her to holiday while Najib is in the country. This only adds to the hatred and resentment.”

Shahbudin recalls Deputy Prime Muhyiddin Yassin’s remark when asked to comment about Najib golfing in Hawaii with US President Barack Obama. “Leave the Prime Minister alone,” said Muhyiddin. “Like any normal human being, he too needs a holiday.”

He interprets the DPM’s comment as a veiled criticism, using the Malay expression that translates into “poisoned honey”. He speculates that Muhyiddin, if asked to comment on the gossip about Rosmah, would say, “Just let Rosmah use the jet. She too has made huge sacrifices for the country.”

108 detained for theft, spreading false info on social media

Police have established four anti-crime teams in each flood-hit area to prevent criminal activities.

FMT

KOTA BHARU: Kelantan police have detained 108 people, including two women, to facilitate investigations into theft and dissemination of false information on social media since floods hit the country on December 17.

Kelantan police chief Mazlan Lazim said during the period, a total of 37 reports were received, involving theft at business premises while two cases involved the spread of false information about floods on social sites Facebook and WhatsApp.

The individuals involved were aged between 14 and 40, he said at a press conference at the Kelantan police contingent headquarters, here, yesterday.

Mazlan said among the districts affected by theft were Kota Bharu, Bachok, Pasir Puteh, Pasir Mas, Tanah Merah, Gua Musang and Kuala Krai.

“The theft cases are reported to have occurred at night and noon on December 26 to December 28 when the flood waters were at a high level,” he said.

Mazlan said police had set up patrol teams to prevent criminal activities in flood affected areas.

“The team will monitor every area affected by the floods and so far we have four teams in each flood-hit area,” he said.

- BERNAMA

PERUTUSAN TAHUN BAHARU 2015

Anwaribrahimblog

Tahun 2014 melabuhkan tirai dengan penuh hiba dan tragis, dengan bencana banjir besar yang melanda sebahagian besar Pantai Timur Semenanjung khususnya Kelantan. Dengan angka mangsa banjir yang terkesan mencecah ratusan ribu, ia boleh diklasifikasikan sebagai bencana banjir terburuk dalam sejarah. Sekalung takziah bagi yang terkesan atas bencana berkenaan, semoga terus tabah menjalani kehidupan di samping koordinasi bantuan diselaraskan oleh pihak berwajib.

Tahun ini juga kita tinggalkan dengan seribu satu keresahan. Belumpun misteri MH370 dan MH17 dirungkai sepenuhnya, kita dikejutkan dengan insiden kehilangan pesawat QZ8501. Pastinya bukan sesuatu yang mudah untuk dihadapi oleh sekalian ahli keluarga yang menanti khabar berita dan hujung pangkal misteri kehilangan. Keadilan wajar dituntut sehingga ke akhirnya.

Perihal masalah kekurangan air di awal tahun, disusuli masalah jerebu, Malaysia ditimpa pelbagai dugaan. Pastinya ia datang dari Tuhan sebagai satu peringatan, agar kita tidak alpa dan terus leka.

Tidak cukup dengan itu, masalah-masalah perihal kemelut perkauman, kesenjangan ekonomi, kebejatan sosial dan jenayah, kepincangan sistem demokrasi, pendakwaan terpilih serta kelemahan pengurusan tatakelola dan dana awam seakan silih berganti mengisi slot tayangan perdana rakyat.

Senario ini nyata sekali membimbangkan rakyat terbanyak. Kemelut yang sedang melanda pasti memberi dampak yang bukan kecil kesannya. Sementelahan masalah sedia ada masih belum terungkai, kita seakan diasak agar bersedia untuk menghadapi pelbagai rintangan yang bakal mendatang. Ditambah dengan kemurungan ekonomi nasional yang disebabkan oleh ketidaktentuan ekonomi dunia, ini bukan satu senario yang menyenangkan sebagai pembuka tirai.

Tahun baharu kebiasaannya menjanjikan satu cabaran dan menuntut keazaman yang bukan sekadar baharu, tetapi segar dan bertenaga. Pastinya hari – hari yang telah dilalui sebelumnya mencoret pelbagai kenangan, dan pengajaran untuk dijadikan pegangan.

Saya kembali memperingatkan kepentingan kita untuk bermuhasabah diri: memperingat kelemahan lampau dan memperbaiki masa hadapan. Pepatah Arab ini acapkali melintasi pemikiran saya:

Beruntunglah orang yang hari ini lebih baik daripada semalam; rugilah orang yang sama keadaannya hari ini dengan semalam; dan celakalah orang yang hari ini lebih teruk dari semalam.

Tahun 2015 mendambakan kesiap-siagaan total di kalangan segenap lapisan rakyat. Cabaran ekonomi dan sosio-politik nyata sekali merupakan cabaran terbesar yang harus dihadapi bersama.

Di samping kebersediaan rakyat, harapan besar disandarkan kepada pemerintah agar kawalselia sektor ekonomi diperkemaskan supaya tidak membebani rakyat terbanyak. Demikian juga komitmen pemerintah dalam menolak sepenuhnya agenda perkauman sempit serta pendakwaan terpilih yang mampu mendorong kepada ketidakseimbangan sosio-politik dan perpaduan rakyat seluruhnya.

Komitmen KEADILAN dan Pakatan Rakyat jelas dan tuntas: Malaysia harus diurus dalam kerangka humanistik yang menjamin keadilan setiap warganya. Baik sudut politik, ekonomi mahupun social, inilah tekad yang mesti dipegang dan terus ditambah baik dari semasa ke semasa.

Memetik nukilan tersohor penyair Amerika Syarikat TS Eliot dalam puisi ‘Little Gidding’, for last year’s words belong to last year’s language; and next year’s words await another voice. Kita mengharapkan sinar harapan baharu menjelang 2015, meski pelbagai cabaran dijangka menanti di ambang tahun baharu. Pakatan Rakyat khususnya, akan terus memperkemas tekad serta mempertingkat upaya tadbirurus yang telus lagi berintegriti.

Malaysia harus terus dipacu dengan gagah dan bertenaga, berdiri sebagai sebuah Negara merdeka yang adil lagi demokratik berpaksi keluhuran perlembagaan. Negara ini tidak mempunyai ruang untuk ditadbir secara cemerkap, nanar dan tidak berhala tuju jelas.

Justeru, muafakat menjelang tahun baharu harus dipupuk, dengan merai jamak agama dan budaya yang toleran serta harmonis; dengan pengurusan khazanah Negara yang manusiawi lagi seimbang; melalui tatakelola dan pengurusan awam yang berakauntabiliti.

Kita mampu merealisasikan agenda ini, seandainya iltizam politik disemat di seluruh peringkat masyarakat, melangkaui perbedaan ideologi politik yang nyata sekali merugikan sekalian rakyat.

Kepada Tuhan harapan disandarkan, semoga iktikad ini disemai rapi dalam setiap jiwa rakyat Malaysia, yang meyakini keupayaan Negara untuk bebas daripada pasungan kecapikan dan kelelahan.

Selamat Menyambut Tahun Baharu 2015 dari seluruh kepimpinan dan akar umbi KEADILAN buat sekalian rakyat Malaysia.

ANWAR IBRAHIM

2015, time for moderate Malaysians to stand up

As Malaysians bid farewell to 2014, moderate Malaysians have been urged to stand up and beat back the tide of hate and bigotry that have inflamed communal relations throughout the year.

A group of progressive Malays today hoped that Malaysians would be able to reclaim the national conversation on race and religion and reject extremist elements brought about by certain quarters.

This, they argued, was because it was up to each individual to preserve the tolerance, moderation and respect that had been an enduring feature of the country’s pluralistic society.

"Moderation has to be promoted not just because that is what our forefathers wanted for us,” said former deputy prime minister Tun Musa Hitam.

“But because it is one of the ways which our country will remain peaceful and harmonious,” he said in a text message to The Malaysian Insider.

Musa said 2015 would be even more challenging for Malaysia socially and economically, given the depressing forecast on the world economy.

These humps in the economy and the social effects they entailed were why Umno Minister Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohamed feels that calmer voices must prevail against those who are divisive.

“The economy is slowing down, so we need to remain calm. This is my advice to everyone. Chinese, Malays, Indians, Perkasa, everyone.

“Malaysia is a moderate country, not an extremist one,” said Nur Jazlan, who is known to be among the more progressive leaders in Umno.

The Public Accounts Committee chairman has been the target of insults by Malay right-wing group Perkasa, whose members have called him “bangsat” (despicable) for daring to criticise the movement and its cause.

Nur Jazlan also hoped there would be less race and religious issues being played up in 2015 and if they were, that people would not get too sensitive when talking about them.

Another Umno leader Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah hoped that more groups, such as the 25 Malay former civil servants who had called on the government to start a national dialogue to resolve conflicts between Shariah and civil laws, to come forward.

Other good examples, he said were the 33 individuals who have called themselves “Malaysian Moderates”, youth groups and students from the Middle East and the ones behind the #Iam26 campaign he said.

“We need to make 2015 the year of moderation, in our values, approach, our thinking and policies in all fields.

“Moderation is the soul of the Malaysian identity but lately, from an ethnic and religious stand point, it is seen as problematic,” said Saifuddin, who heads the Global Movement of Moderates.

For Aura Merdeka founder Tariq Ismail, the claim by a Muslim NGO, Isma, and Perkasa of representing Muslims and Islam was misleading, since the faith had never taught ethnic chauvinism.

“I can understand where Isma and Perkasa are coming from but their message is wrong,” said Tariq, who is a grandson of former deputy prime minister Tun Dr Ismail Abdul Rahman.

“There is no racialism in Islam. So if you want to talk about Islam, you cannot talk about race.”

If there is something that could motivate more moderates to come out is the fact that in reality, they are the silent majority, whereas extremists are the vocal minority.

This was alluded to by Sisters in Islam leader Ratna Osman who said that extremists did not represent the majority of Malaysians.

"I hope that peace-loving Malaysians will rise up and not let the country by manipulated by these extremists.

“They do not represent us as Malaysians and we should not let them spread their evil agenda,” said Ratna, whose organisation has also been targeted by religious conservatives. – December 31, 2014.

- See more at: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/2015-time-for-moderate-malaysians-to-stand-up#sthash.buFDOItH.dpuf

2015: Najib Hopes To Build Safer, More Prosperous And More Equal Society

Datuk Seri Najib Tun RazakKUALA LUMPUR, Dec 31 (Bernama) -- Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak hopes to build a safer, more prosperous, and more equal society next year, by focusing on the lives and needs of the rakyat.

Prime Minister in his End of Year Message on his blog, www.najibrazak.com Wednesday said in the months and years ahead, his focus was on the rakyat.

"Although Malaysia's economic performance has been exceptional, I know that people do not always feel they are getting their piece of our national success.

"So alongside our efforts to strengthen our economy by raising incomes, reducing spending, and boosting productivity, we will also work to reduce inequality by narrowing the gap between the rich and poor," he said.

Najib said he was confident that Malaysia's economy would continue to grow, and bring more jobs and a better standard of living, because of the strong fundamentals, and clear and consistent government policy.

"Our economy is on track to grow by 5.7 per cent this year, and 4.7 per cent in 2015. Our deficit is falling, our reserves are strong; we have trusted financial institutions, low unemployment, and record levels of foreign investment.

"Malaysia's economy is well placed to weather any storms," he said.

Najib said Malaysia needed to be proactive to build a resilient economy that was prepared for any eventuality.

"With global events causing problems for many countries, I am pleased that we have already taken measures to protect our economy. Just last week, the World Bank confirmed that Malaysia remains in a strong position precisely because we acted to rationalise subsidies," he said.

He said the Goods and Services Tax (GST), which would be introduced on April 1 next year, would help strengthen the government finances so that Malaysia could continue productive expenditure on things like roads, schools and hospitals for the benefit of the people.

"And alongside the GST, we will continue the reforms to make our economy more competitive, which will bring more opportunities for our businesses and higher income for the people," he said.

Najib said that to ensure the safety and security of the Malaysian people from the increasing threats of terrorist groups, the government had introduced a new terrorism white paper and was also strengthening the country's cooperation with foreign intelligence agencies.

"My greatest responsibility as the prime minister is to ensure the safety and security of the Malaysian people. Our position is quite clear; we reject this so-called Islamic State. We reject this state defined by extremism. And we condemn the violence being committed in the name of Islam," he said.

On recent floods suffered in several states, Najib said the government s priority was to get help to people who need it now, with the supplies and assistance for those who were stranded or displaced, and financial support, so that people can get their lives back together.

Next year, he said, the government's priority was to rebuild the infrastructure, businesses and homes that were damaged in an environmentally friendly way so that future floods would not be more likely or more damaging.

Najib said Malaysia would play a much bigger role in the region and world affairs in the year to come.

"Next year, we will chair Asean, as we prepare to launch the Asean Community. "In 2015, under Malaysia's chairmanship, we will lay the foundations for deeper regional integration. For the people of Asean, this will mean more opportunities with more jobs, and easier ways to do business.

"In 2015, we will also hold a non-permanent seat on the United Nations (UN) Security Council. Far from just a diplomatic badge of pride, this is a chance for Malaysia to state our support for key objectives, including a dignified and secure future for the Palestinian people and make a real contribution to global security problems," he said.

Najib described 2014 as the most challenging year of his career and one of the most difficult years in Malaysia's history with the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH370 and the destruction of MH17.

"2014 did bring prosperity for Malaysia, but it was also the year we were united in grief. I believe we will come out of these twin tragedies stronger and more determined.

"In mosques, churches and temples, in shopping malls and online, Malaysians responded to these tragedies as one. We have been tested by disaster, but the spirit of the nation remains strong," he said.

MH370, enroute from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, disappeared on March 8 while MH17, during its journey from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was shot down in eastern Ukraine on July 17.

On the AirAsia Indonesia flight QZ8501 tragedy, the prime minister said: "Our thoughts are with our brothers and sisters in Indonesia."

Amidst the tragedies, there were high points in 2014, including the country's 40th anniversary of diplomatic relations with China and United States President Barack Obama's visit to Malaysia.

IGP: Floods claim 21 lives, 10 missing

Waris penumpang terlalu sedih lihat jasad dijumpai

Aceh, Islamic authorities forbid New Year celebrations

By Mathias Hariyadi

New Year celebrations do not coincide with the Islamic calendar and are "contrary to Muslim culture". The prohibition to celebrate was issued by the mayor of Banda Aceh, and immediately supported by local authorities. Citizens of other religions "must show respect".

Jakarta (AsiaNews) - In Aceh Province - the only Indonesian province in which Sharia, or Islamic law, is implemented - New Year celebrations are banned. The prohibition was released two days ago by Illiza Sa'aduddin Djamal, mayor of Banda Aceh, who explained that Muslims are forbidden to celebrate the new year, because it does not coincide with the Islamic calendar. The ban was immediately supported by local authorities.

The celebration of the new year, she added, "is not a religious event, but just a profane and worldly event where people only enjoy the transfer of a new day with hurrahs. Cafés and night spots are told to stop their operation". For this reason, Illiza Sa'aduddin Djamal has also forbidden all religious activities.

Police have been ordered to confiscate fireworks or other such material for the festivities. "All events related to New Year celebrations are contrary to Islamic culture. Non-Muslim citizens of Banda Aceh will have to show respect".

Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, is often the scene of attacks or acts of intolerance against minorities, be they Christians, Ahmadi Muslims or of other faiths. In Aceh Province - the only one in the Archipelago - Islamic law (Shari'a) is implemented, following a peace agreement between the central Government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM); in many other areas (such as Bekasi and Bogor in West Java) an increasingly radical and extreme vision of Islam is becoming prominent.

Nun pleads for Christians raped, sold, killed by ISIS

Refugees live 'like animals' in camps

It is the season of “peace on Earth,” but Sister Hatune Dogan has a chill in her spirit that could only be felt in a time of war.

The Orthodox Christian nun feels it with each new atrocity committed against the Yazidi and Christian minorities of Syria and Iraq. She feels it in the church burnings across Egypt and the slaughter of innocent children in Pakistan.

For this reason she brought a word of warning to Americans in a visit last week to Minnesota, where she spoke to several church groups.

Today’s political climate draws her back to 1915 and her native Turkey, when her family experienced the cruelty of the Ottoman caliphate, which slaughtered 3 million Christians and reduced others to second-class status under subjugation, or “dhimmitude.”

ISIS is nothing new, she said, just the re-emergence of Islam’s dark side.

“ISIS is not fanatic. ISIS is not more terrible. ISIS is real Muslim believers who like to follow the Quran and Muhammad,” said the founder of Warburg, Germany-based Sister Hatune Foundation, a worldwide relief organization that has been honored by the German government for its dedication to human rights.

“Others say they are Muslim. They say they believe Quran, but they don’t follow it,” she said.

Armenian Christians accounted for about half of the 3 million who lost their lives in Turkey, but the other half were Christians of various ethnic backgrounds – Greek Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox and Protestants. All felt the boot of jihad against their heads.

Sister Hatune arrived last Thursday at the Atlanta airport for a stopover on her way back to Germany. She was dressed in traditional black garments and a habit covering her hair. She wore a simple wooden crucifix around her neck and carried with her a well-worn copy of the Quran, which has become her constant companion wherever she goes to teach about the current situation in the Middle East.

She believes Christians in the West should learn what is written in the Muslim holy book. If they did, they would realize that the Islamic State, also called ISIS, is not doing anything that hasn’t been done in the past by devout Muslims who have conquered a people they see as “infidels.”

Where are all the Christians?

Sister Hatune points to the fact that 96 percent of the people who populated the Middle East at the turn of the eighth century were Christian. Now, that Christian population has dwindled to 6 percent. Turkey was once almost all Christian, but now it is 0.03 percent Christian. Iraq had 1 million Christians under Saddam Hussein, but now only a few thousand remain, and the churches of Baghdad will be mostly empty this Christmas.

“Where are these Christians? Where are these people? Just ask yourself,” said the fearless nun, whose native tongue is Aramaic.

Her family initially lived in Turkey as Jews, but later her entire village converted to Christianity.

Born in 1970 the middle daughter of 10 children, Sister Hatune learned to speak 13 languages, but none make her more proud than Aramaic.

“This is the language of Jesus,” she told WND.

The Sister Hatune Foundation works in 35 countries with Matthew 25:34-40 as its mission statement – feeding, clothing, sheltering and providing medical care to the poor and persecuted of the world. She has been making regular trips to the Middle East since 2005, and ISIS presents a new challenge: trying to rescue orphaned children from its clutches.

Sister Hatune returned to her home convent in Germany for only a few days before she will make another trip to the Middle East to celebrate Christmas with persecuted Christians. She was with them in November when she visited refugee camps in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. She also sneaked into Syria to meet with Christians there.

“They need your support. Without your support they can’t continue,” she says in avideo showing her with a group of Yazidi refugees. “They live like animals. Starving. No food. Unsanitary. No one should have to live like this.”

Donate electronically to the Hatune Foundation, or send a check to Sister Hatune Foundation, Neur Weg 2, Warburg, Germany, D-34414.



It’s a plight she is all too familiar with. Her question “What happened to all the Christians?” is purely rhetorical and completely personal. Her family lived through the genocide of 1915 in Turkey, the country from which her parents fled in 1985.

Her great-aunt Sarah lived through the persecution in Zaz, a small village in southeastern Turkey, in 1915.

“She was 18 years old, very beautiful. One of the Muslim men saw her and said, ‘She is beautiful. She belongs to me,’” Sister Hatune said.

Sarah had four brothers, a mother and father, several cousins, aunts and uncles living in the village.

“Twelve in all, in October 1915, they killed in front of her eyes,” Sister Hatune said, motioning with her hands and speaking in a thick accent. “Shot them in front of her eyes.”

The operation was carried out by Islamic jihadists, both Turks and Kurds, with the blessing of the Turkish army.

“It was planned,” she said.

In all, 365 members of her family’s church, St. Demetrios, were murdered, representing about half of the village’s population.

“First they shot them. More than half were still alive so they burned them alive in the church in 1915 in my village,” she said.

Her great-grandmother had two children and was forced in 1921 to beg her Muslim masters to let her keep one of them and raise him as a Christian.

It is the same experience playing out today under ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

“The most beautiful ones they take for their wives and say ‘now you have to be Muslim,’” said Sister Hatune.

The others are forced to convert or die. Many have been slaughtered in front of their parents. She has one video smuggled out of Iraq that shows three young boys, around 5 or 6 years old, being psychologically tormented by their eventual killer.

“Tell me which one should I cut first,” the man asks them in Arabic.

A long butcher knife sits on a table beside him.

“Come put your head here,” he says, as the boys scream in terror.

They take a step back, but the confines of the small room leave nowhere to run.

When neither boy steps forward to volunteer his neck, the man yells: “Come all of you. Come all of you!”

He grabs one of the boys. The one in the white shirt. The boy screams and the other two cry.

“Are you ISIS?” the man yells over the screaming boy. “Are you ISIS?”

“No!” the boy answers through his tears.

All three were beheaded. The nun said she received the video from a relative of the three boys.

In another video, shot in 2013, three Christian priests are shown being led out into a field with their hands bound. A Muslim man wrestles one priest to the ground and slices his head off while several hundred Muslims yell: “Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!”

‘I Believe in Action’

Drawing on her own family background, Sister Hatune has recently finished work on her 13th book, “I Believe in Action,” written to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Christian genocide in Turkey. In this book she compares the life of Jesus to that of Muhammad, Islam’s main prophet.

“I not write from my head. All facts,” she said. “Muhammad came and he brought killing, beheading, pedophilia. He slept with a 9-year-old girl, he married when she was 6 years old. We know because she says it herself in the Hadith. In Yemen today, where Shariah is the law, they have to marry the girl before her first menstruation, maximum of age 13, because it is written.”

Sister Hatune thumbs through her Quran and finds another verse that she says leads Muslims to murder Christians in the Middle East.

“Twenty-five times in Quran it says to kill Christians because we are involved in polytheism,” she said, explaining that Muslims do not understand the concept of the Holy Trinity. “Also it says to not make friends with Christians.”

Europe is on its way to becoming the next battleground for Islam, especially Belgium and France, where Muslims make up 6 to 10 percent of the population. Sister Hatune’s adopted country of Germany is at least 4 percent Muslim and has more than 4,000 mosques.

“A mosque is not just for prayer,” the nun said. “It is to prepare to kill the unbeliever and control the world.”

In the Quran there are 97 verses against the unbeliever.

“And there are verses against the Christians who say God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, or that Jesus is the Son of God. They have to be beheaded, the head cut off from the neck; no other interpretation. This is what the Muslims are doing. Normal Muslims, who are really Muslims, have to follow this rule,” she said. “There will never be peace on Earth if these verses of the Quran are not stopped. It is in the Quran, Hadith and sunna 36,800 times, the words ‘cut,’ ‘kill’ or ‘attack.’ How can there be peace on Earth?”

The Quran also gives Muslim men permission to rape girls and women who are held captive as slaves (Sura 23:5-6).

In conquered cities, ISIS has marked the homes of Christians with a red symbol of the Nazarene. They are then visited by ISIS militants who bring unspeakable horrors upon the families.

Sister Hatune says it is justified under Sura 5:33 in the Quran, which states:

“Indeed, the penalty for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and strive upon earth [to cause] corruption is none but that they be killed or crucified or that their hands and feet be cut off from opposite sides or that they be exiled from the land.”

Muslim apologists in the West say the verse is taken out of context by “Islamophobes,” but Sister Hatune believes otherwise.

“Those of us Christians from Middle East. We know them. We know their rules,” she said.

Today there are 57 Islamic countries living under Islamic law.

“Education is not allowed for the girls. The women are created for the sex for the gents,” she said. “If she becomes raped she has to bring four men with her as witness. Of course it is impossible, so she will be stoned. There are so many women and girls who die from stoning.”

Sister Hatune recalls going to school in Turkey as a young girl. Even though everyone in her village was Christian, no Christians were allowed to hold positions of authority under Islamic law, so all her teachers were Muslim. If the Christian children were caught going to church the teacher would beat them, usually by striking their hands with a metal rod.

She said the Turkish government confiscated all the guns from Christians before launching a violent jihad against them.

“Village by village they came and said, ‘If you don’t give your guns we will put you in prison for seven years,’” she said.

At the age of 14 Sister Hatune left Turkey with her parents in 1985, finding refuge in Germany. She joined a monastery there called the Sisters Serving Christ when she was 16.

“We were a rich family. They threatened my father to cut him here,” she said with a tug on the lower portion of her ear. “He run away. He said this is enough. We must leave everything and go.”

Watch video below of Sister Hatune relating her life story growing up under the “hard persecution” of the Turkish regime, which she said “pretends to be liberal” but is one of the world’s most fanatical Muslim countries.

Theodore Shoebat, son of former Palestinian terrorist-turned Christian Walid Shoebat, described Sister Hatune in a Dec. 30, 2013 article as a modern-day Mother Theresa.

“Hatune’s willingness to help the persecuted is so immense that it surpasses what anyone is doing today in the Middle East,” Shoebat wrote. “She has visited 38 countries and worked in the Ministry of Charitable and Social Service in Zimbabwe, Turkey and in India. Her righteous deeds of course receive the vociferous wrath of the jihadists, in the words of Dogan, ‘I get 18 death threats in seven languages.’”

A message for America

Sister Hatune came to America last week to seek donations for her ministry to the persecuted minorities of Iraq, Syria, Egypt and India. Most of these minorities are Christian but many in Iraq and Syria are of the ancient Yazidi sect. In one video Sister Hatune appears in a Yazidi refugee camp surrounded by families who have nothing but the clothes on their backs.

She came to America with a plea for help. But she also came with a message for Americans.

“America is inviting its own slaughterers to its door,” she said, referring to the U.S. policy of taking in Muslim refugees through the United Nations refugee program.

WND reported Dec. 11 that the U.N. has assigned 9,000 mostly Muslim refugees from Syria for resettlement in U.S. cities and towns and the U.S. has accepted nearly 2 million from Muslim countries since 1992.

“You have already a parallel society in America,” Sister Hatune said. “In 50 years they will kill your grandchildren before your eyes. The Middle East is already here. It is here. It is not far from here. It is at your door.”



That’s a message many churches in Minnesota were not ready to hear, said Debra Anderson, who heads a local chapter of ACT! For America and sponsored Sister Hatune’s recent visit.

“She wanted to do something active. She felt faith without works was dead,” Anderson said. “But it was rough trying to get her invited to speak at the churches in Minnesota. Some of it was her message. She is very critical of the Muslim governments.”

One church group that invited her to speak gave her a reception that Anderson described as “cool.”

They visited an order of Catholic nuns and “five or six of them walked out near the end of her presentation,” she said.

“Some of the photos of human suffering she showed in her presentation; I think they were really shaken,” Anderson said. “I don’t know that they had ever been challenged in their way of thinking like that. But it was all facts. We told them to check out other experts.

“But I had this one nun just interrupt me and say, ‘I am not going to listen to her anymore,’” Anderson said. “I had a hard time getting her into the churches. I really did.”

Anderson said she put out a request for speaking venues to some 800 people on her email list representing various Christian denominations.

Only a few responded with invitations.

One of the nuns from the convent in Minnesota interrupted Sister Hatune’s presentation with a specific concern.

“Sister, that’s enough,” she said, voicing her concern about a potential backlash against Muslims in the community if Sister Hatune’s documentation were to ever get widely disseminated.

But while some were repelled by the stories of thousands of girls being raped and the images of Christians being crucified by ISIS or Muslims playing soccer with the heads of their victims, others responded by coming up afterward and asking how they could get more information and possibly get involved in helping these persecuted Christians.

“My mission is to help the suffering people where they are,” Sister Hatune said. “They cannot come to me, so I go to them. One hundred percent of donations go to the suffering people. We are all volunteer. We are total independent. We have no big donor now. I wish. We have two fish and five loaves, and God is multiplying.”

The work is carried out by 5,000 volunteers with no paid staff, Sister Hatune said.

An elderly German man left the Orthodox nun a small stipend to live on when he died. She pays out of her own pocket for travel, or has a sponsor pay for her flight, as was the case with her trip to Minnesota.

Now she is making plans to return to the Middle East for Christmas, hoping to bring some gifts for children.

One of those who heard her message asked her if she was afraid.

“Everyone has fear,” Sister Hatune said. “But I am called to show solidarity. You do that, not with talk, but with action, with duty. Jesus is my body guard.”

The nun says Islamic culture is basically “like a dog,” in that it must be confronted. If there is a void or a weakness in the Christian culture, the Muslims will sense that weakness and continue to march through and intimidate the native culture.

“You cannot be afraid of Islam culture,” she said. “If you run, they will come after you like dog culture. You must stand your ground. I don’t say fight. I say resist. I say to them, ‘Stop. I don’t want you. I have my own God.’ They come here thinking to conquer the country. If they don’t accept the American way of life, go back to your home. The government has to understand this.”

Cops hack 9,000 porno Twitter accounts in Saudi

Arrested many owners

By 24/7

Saudi Arabia’s feared religious police smashed nearly 9,000 Twitter porno accounts and arrested many of their owners within a crackdown against vice in the conservative Gulf kingdom, newspapers reported on Tuesday.

The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice said it joined hands with some “ethical hackers” to locate those accounts and identify their owners.

“The Commission members have succeeded in hacking Twitter porno accounts, shutting them and arresting some of their owners over the past period,” a Commission spokesman said without specify that period.

He said raids by Commission members also resulted in the arrest of many Saudis and expatriates involved in booze parties, vice and gambling.

Flight QZ8501 relatives distraught as bodies found in sea

Relatives of passengers on AirAsia flight QZ8501 began crying hysterically and fainting today as Indonesian television footage showed a body floating in the sea during aerial searches for the plane.

At least two distraught family members were carried out on stretchers from the room where they had been waiting for news in Surabaya, Indonesia's second largest city – the take-off point for the aircraft that disappeared during a storm on Sunday.

"My heart will be totally crushed if it's true. I will lose a son," 60-year-old Dwijanto, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, told AFP.

More than 48 hours after the Airbus A320-200 lost contact carrying 162 people to Singapore, aerial searchers spotted items in the Java Sea which officials said were from the plane. Soon after, they began recovering dozens of bodies.

As the first body was shown floating in the water on rolling television news, relatives burst into tears and hugged one another amid cries for more ambulances, said an AFP reporter at the scene.

One man covered his face and had to be held up by two other men before he fainted and was taken out by stretcher. Another woman was screaming and crying as she was supported by the mayor of Surabaya.

A female AirAsia officer shouted at the television media for showing footage of a floating body, while about 200 journalists were barred from the room holding the families, the windows of which were boarded up.

"Is it possible for you not to show a picture of the dead? Please do not show a picture of a dead body," said the officer. "That's crazy."

Munif, a 50-year-old whose younger brother Siti Rahmah was on the plane, said he had been trying hard to keep the other families calm.

"But the atmosphere was very different after the footage of a dead body was shown. Families became hysterical," he said.

"Because everyone was wailing and yelling, I couldn't deal with it so I decided to leave the room."

In Malaysia, families of those on the MH370 flight that went missing without a trace in March hoped those lost in the latest tragedy could at least have a proper burial.

"The families can now have a closure and have a peace of mind which I am dying for," said Selamat Omar, whose 29-year-old son was on the Malaysia Airlines plane. – AFP, December 30, 2014.

Perkasa mulls suit against G25 for ‘baseless allegations’

Upset at being criticised, right-wing group Perkasa is planning to sue the 25 prominent Malays who signed an open letter appealing for rational discourse on Islam, or at the very least, the group's vocal spokesperson, former diplomat Datuk Noor Farida Ariffin.

The 25, who are retired civil servants and influential leaders, had called for an end to extremist views that spread racial and religious discord, and some members, in individual comments to the media, had also singled out groups like Perkasa and Ikatan Muslimin Malaysia (Isma) for politicising Islam.

Perkasa secretary-general Syed Hassan Syed Ali told The Malaysian Insider that they were making preparations to sue Noor Farida for her baseless allegations against the group.

"We are not going to be lenient anymore. We will take action against any party who makes baseless allegations against Perkasa."

Noor Farida, in an interview with The Malaysian Insider, had said the erosion of Malay rights that Perkasa and Isma claimed was "all in their imagination".

She also explained her fear that Malaysia could one day end up like "another Pakistan and Afghanistan" where religious extremism had scared the moderates and professionals into leaving the country.

Some of the other signatories, like retired Court of Appeal judge Datuk Seri Shaikh Daud Md Ismail, had also expressed concerns that Putrajaya was not doing enough to check extremists rhetoric in the country.

The open letter had asked Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to address religious and racial tension and exercise leadership in guiding Malaysia back to moderation.

Syed Hassan said Perkasa would never acknowledge the letter's signatories, now dubbed as the Group of 25 (G25), as they did not represent the Malay community.

"Perkasa will not acknowledge this Group of 25 as a representative of the Malays.

"It is up to the G25 to also say that Perkasa does not represent the Malays, but at least we have more than 500,000 Malays as our members," he said.

Perkasa's possible legal action against Noor Farida or all 25 signatories comes after the Malay-rights pressure group's president, Datuk Ibrahim Ali, filed a defamation suit against English language daily Star Publications Bhd and its chief executive officer Datuk Seri Wong Chun Wai.

Ibrahim is suing Wong over an opinion piece on the Perkasa chief's call for Malays to burn Bibles with the word "Allah".

Ibrahim had also called the G25 members "cowards" for criticising Malay-rights groups like Perkasa and Isma.

"They are only attacking the Malays. Why are they not saying anything on the non-Malay groups and the others who have criticised Islam and the Malay rulers?" Ibrahim had said at Perkasa's annual general assembly in Kuala Lumpur on December 14.

He also decried the letter and the views of the G25 as "Malay liberals" who were a threat to Islam.

“In 2015, we will be haunted by issues involving Islam’s defence. Malay liberals have now replaced those who want to destroy Islam,” Ibrahim said, adding that what they saw as "extremism" was actually "Islam's rules" and "God's law".

Amid worsening race and religious relations in Malaysia, the G25 had published an open letter on December 8 asking for a rational dialogue on the position of Islam and Islamic law in a constitutional democracy.

"Given the impact of such vitriolic rhetoric on race relations and the political stability of this country, we feel it is incumbent on us to take a public position," said Noor Farida, a former Malaysian ambassador to the Netherlands, in a statement issued on behalf of the 25 signatories.

The letter decried the "lack of clarity and understanding" on the place of Islam within Malaysia's constitutional democracy, as well as a "serious breakdown of federal-state division of powers, both in the areas of civil and criminal jurisdictions".

It also expressed concern at how religious authorities were "asserting authority beyond their jurisdiction" and that fatwa issued had violated the Federal Constitution as well as the consultative process.

Among the proposals it recommended was the need to promote awareness about the diversity of views and interpretations in Islam.

Public support for the letter's contents and for the 25 signatories has been strong, with many writing to media organisations expressing their thanks and solidarity with the signatories, while an online petition called #iam26 drew thousands of signatures. – December 31, 2014.

- See more at: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/perkasa-mulls-suit-against-g25-for-baseless-allegations#sthash.jNXDHDq7.dpuf

AirAsia debris, bodies retrieved from sea

 

Indonesian rescuers searching for an AirAsia plane carrying 162 people pulled bodies and wreckage from the sea off the coast of Borneo today, prompting relatives of those on board watching TV footage to break down in tears.

Indonesia AirAsia's Flight QZ8501, an Airbus A320-200, lost contact with air traffic control early on Sunday during bad weather on a flight from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore.

The plane has yet to be found.

"My heart is filled with sadness for all the families involved in QZ8501," airline boss Tony Fernandes tweeted. "On behalf of AirAsia, my condolences to all. Words cannot express how sorry I am."

The airline said in a statement that it was inviting family members to Surabaya, "where a dedicated team of care providers will be assigned to each family to ensure that all of their needs are met".

Pictures of floating bodies were broadcast on television and relatives of the missing already gathered at a crisis centre in Surabaya wept with heads in their hands.

Several people collapsed in grief and were helped away.

"You have to be strong," the mayor of Surabaya, Tri Rismaharini, said as she comforted relatives. "They are not ours, they belong to God."

A navy spokesman said a plane door, oxygen tanks and one body had been recovered and taken away by helicopter for tests.

"The challenge is waves up to three metres high," Fransiskus Bambang Soelistyo, head of the Search and Rescue Agency, told reporters, adding that the search operation would go on all night.

He declined to answer questions on whether any survivors had been found.

About 30 ships and 21 aircraft from Indonesia, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and the United States have been involved in the search.

Bizarrely, an AirAsia plane from Manila skidded off and overshot the runway on landing at Kalibo in the central Philippines on Tuesday. No one was hurt.

On board Flight QZ8501 were 155 Indonesians, three South Koreans, and one person each from Singapore, Malaysia and Britain. The co-pilot was French.

US law enforcement and security officials said passenger and crew lists were being examined but nothing significant had turned up and the incident was regarded as an unexplained accident.

Indonesia AirAsia is 49 percent owned by Malaysia-based budget carrier AirAsia.

The AirAsia group, including affiliates in Thailand, the Philippines and India, had not suffered a crash since its Malaysian budget operations began in 2002.

- Reuters

Deities in Pengerang to be 'homeless'

SPECIAL REPORT For septuagenarian Tan Swee Hoon, the festival of Chinese gods at the Hu Fu temple in Kampung Sungai Jawa in Pengerang, Johor, has been the most anticipated event for the past 70 years.

As she recalled, that was the time when the Kampung Sungai Jawa folk led their lives without television and Internet, which made temple stage performances a precious entertainment. 

In mid-December this year, the Hu Fu temple committee held its annual gods festival together with a number of other Chinese temples in Pengerang.

What makes their festivals unique is that the committee of each temple will ‘invite’ deities from the other temples to join in their celebrations.

Committees that accept the invitation must carry the statue of their temple deity to the celebrating temple and only bring it back after the celebration ends, days later.

Unfortunately, this year’s celebration is the last ever for the Hu Fu temple, which is to give way to the RM60 billion Refinery and Petrochemical Integrated Development (Rapid) project being carried out by national oil and gas company Petronas.

Petronas acquired a 2,630-acre site, spreading across Kampung Sungai Kapal, Kampung Sungai Jawa and Kampung Teluk Ampang, for the project.

Built in 1884, the small Hu Fu temple is located off the shore. It has been guarding and blessing the fishermen in the sea for the past 120 years. The space in front of it is where the villagers gather or hang around.

According to a Hu Fu temple committee member, Yong Teck Chai (right), eight Chinese temples in Kampung Sungai Kapal, Tanjung Tembuang, Kampung Teluk Ampang and Kampung Sungai Kapal are being forced to be relocated to a newly developed residential area - Taman Bayu Damai, some 15km to the east of their current sites.

However, Yong said, the statues would be “homeless” because the temple committees were told to vacate the temples by April next year - with the construction of the new temple buildings still a long way to go.

“It takes one to two years to build (a new temple), so we have no way out. The deities are going to be in trouble... they will have to be put in somebody’s house, temporarily.

“The deities are in trouble, for they have no place to stay. What to do?” he asked with a wry smile.

Yong said the statues of the Hu Fu temple needed to be placed in the house of a priest, at least. The statues from the demolished Kampung Sungai Kapal temple, he added, have been placed at a temple committee member’s house in Singapore.

The rest of the temple statues will be put in a Chinese temple in Kampung Sungai Renggit, which is not affected by the Rapid project.

Plot of 3.5 acres land given to eight temples

According to the government’s planning, Yong said, all the eight temples will be located on a 3.5-acre plot of land and each of the temples will be given 19,000 square-feet sites.

“Originally, they only gave us a two-acre piece of land, and we managed to strive for 3.5 acres,” said the 67-year-old businessperson, adding that each temple would only have limited space as they were planning to build a common hall on the land.

However, the proposal does not satisfy everyone. The Guan Yin temple committee members from Tanjung Tembuang are complaining that the area given them is too small.

One of the Guan Yin temple committee members, who only wanted to be referred to as Soon, said the proposed site would have to accommodate statues from four temples.

Soon said the Guan Yin temple was the only temple in that area that was able to get the land and money compensation from the government as it is a registered temple, while the others were not.

“We have many statues and we would like to fit four into one temple. But how can we arrange them?” he asked.

After a recent meeting among the committee members of the eight temples, Soon happily told Malaysiakini that the problem had been resolved as they eventually obtained a bigger plot of land at the meeting.

On the other hand, although all the temples are forced to make way for the Rapid project under the name of development, Yong still opined that it does more good than harm.

“I personally think that it’s good to relocate as all (the temples and deities) will be together and all of them can be invited to watch the performances during the festival,” Yong said, adding that this would save time and costs if the statues are to be moved to different temples.

No compensation for unregistered temples

Meanwhile, a local resident, Chua Peng Sian, who calls himself the “toothless man” and has been opposing the Rapid project right from the beginning, said the total number of Chinese temples in Pengerang cannot be confirmed.

Of the temples, Chua (left) said, not more than 10 are registered and have received compensation from the government to move out for the RM60 billion Rapid project.

Generally, he explained, registered temples in the Pengerang area have official committee members who organise the large-scale gods festivals, while the other unregistered ones have caretakers and they too did not face any problem before the coming of the Rapid project.

In this case, Chua said, the unregistered temples have no way to seek compensation for relocation.

One typical example of this would be the Shun De temple at Kampung Sungai Kapal, which is currently being cared for by a farmer, Kee Mooi Mooi, 56, and her family.

The family of six had the temple erected right in front of their house some 30 years ago, with Kee’s husband turning into a medium and receiving donations from the community to build the temple.

However, the family faces problems in getting their temple relocated, for the compensation of RM100,000 they have been promised is only for their house and the land it is located on.

“I used to insist on not relocating as I have a deep feeling about the temple. And also, I grew up here and it is a great pity that we are being forced by the government to move out,” said the heart-wrenching Kee (left).

Eventually, she decided to move to Taman Kota Jaya in Kota Tinggi with her family, and spend the monetary compensation to build a new house on a 2.5-acre plot of land, as well as a new Shun De temple right next to it.

“I need to start all over again once I have moved. It causes me a big headache, but I have no choice,” Kee said.

Kampung Sungai Kapal is about 80km away from Taman Kota Jaya, which is about an hour’s drive away.

However, what worries Kee even more is that she has not received the compensation from the government until today.

“It (the government) said (the compensation will be given to us) in the middle of December, but we have got nothing until now. I cannot work on the things that I have planned until I get the money,” she said.

Although Kee said her friends staying in Kota Tinggi welcomed them to move there, she was forced to leave her long-time friends in Pengerang.

“I have to leave this place... it’s a pity. I will be going there (Kota Tinggi), but all the friends here will be gone,” she lamented.

Pregnant mum, child killed in Camerons landslide

A pregnant woman and her year-old son were killed while her husband fractured a leg in a landslide in Cameron Highlands, today, police said.

M. Nitiahwaty, 24, who was eight months pregnant, and R. Rubeniswaran were buried alive in the landslide which occurred at a hill behind their house at Km46 Jalan Brinchang-Tringkap about 5.30am, Cameron Highlands police chief DSP Wan Zahari Wan Busu said.

Nitiahwaty's husband, V Raja, 41, was rescued by fire and rescue personnel, Wan Zahari said, adding that Raja was buried up to the chest and had fractured his left leg.

Raja and the bodies of Nitiahwaty and Rubeniswaran were sent to the Sultanah Hajah Kalsom Hospital in Tanah Rata, he said.

Wan Zahari said the family had tried to escape the landslide as it occurred by trying to flee through a motor workshop in front of their house but the workshop door was locked.

Raja works at the workshop and the family lived in a house made of wood and plastic behind the workshop.

"They tried to save themselves by running out through the workshop but the workshop door was locked and they were hit by the debris from the landslide," he said when contacted.

Cameron Highlands Fire and Rescue chief Yusry Abdullah Sani said Raja was rescued at 7.15am.

Rubeniswaran was removed from the debris at about 8am and Nitiahwaty, about 30 minutes later.

- Bernama

PAS hudud bill: Putting the cart before the horse?

Dr Abdul Aziz Bari, The Ant Daily

PAS insistence on tabling the hudud bill in the Kelantan state assembly, as expected, has riled the party’s Pakatan Rakyat partners, particularly DAP.

But whatever the politics of this issue, to the experts what matters is the purpose. As of now, it is not quite clear what the bill, which sought to implement the hudud or Islamic criminal laws in the state, sought to do. There is the general view that criminal law falls under federal jurisdiction.

Even if Kelantan subscribes to the idea that hudud could be implemented within the existing framework – namely the Islamic criminal law that falls under the state jurisdiction – there are certain hurdles that need to overcome first, including the increase of jurisdiction of the syariah courts.

At the moment. their powers are not enough to deal with hudud offences. Of course all these presuppose that the ideological bar – namely the secular nature of the Constitution as alleged by the DAP – does not hold water.

In other words even assuming that hudud could be implemented by the states, they could not afford to ignore the federal authorities under which agencies, such as the police force, rest. Needless to say necessary amendments to laws pertaining to the syariah court jurisdiction as well as certain provisions of the Penal Code and so on can only be done by federal parliament.

Such makes one wonder if Kelantan Deputy Menteri Besar Datuk Mohd. Amar Abdullah was really serious when he claimed that hudud was more important than capturing Putrajaya. Apparently he did not see federal power as something crucial to make his hudud dream a reality.

And this is something that has made the partners – namely PKR and DAP – looked down upon the state’s proposed tabling. In short, the partners did not consider the proposal by Kelantan as something logical let alone viable.

It appears that outside Kelantan, not everybody in PAS agrees with the hudud proposal. It has emerged that the state government pursued the matter in secrecy from the party’s central authority.

Such was the impression when on Dec 23, it was reported that some of central committee members, most of whom were either Erdogans or Anwarites or simply the progressive wing, claimed that the party has never been consulted on the proposal.

Although this was followed by a curious statement by Datuk Mustafa Ali, the secretary-general who leans more towards the conservative wing led by party president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang, the impression remains.

One may add that immediately after former MB Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat left office in the aftermath of the GE13, the new state government led by Datuk Ahmad Yaakob admitted that hudud could not be implemented within the existing framework.

Whatever the truth the problem with PAS’ hudud vision is more than just the party’s inconsistency and flip-flopping. The major problem with PAS is that they never argued the case for hudud implementation in the light of the existing constitutional scheme.

In fact PAS used to ignore the constitution. This began to change and the party adopted a more constitution-friendly as more and more professionals, including lawyers, joined the party after the 1998 Reformasi.

Nonetheless, this faction has yet to take full control of the party. Hence the weird views put up by Mohd Amar, including the use of guillotine as well as using the service of medical doctors to cut off limbs under hudud law. The latter view was rebutted strongly by the Malaysian Medical Association (MMA).

Admittedly one of the reasons which made the hudud implementation looks viable is the success of Islamic banking and Islamic university. As the two Islamic projects, like hudud, have their roots in Islam, it is argued that there is no reason why the latter could not be implemented in Malaysia.

For the record both Islamic banking and Islamic university, just like hudud today, used to be seen as not viable for the simple reason that they were against the existing conventional systems.

Be that as it may, one has to bear in mind that those two major Islamic projects were essentially top-bottom ones imposed during Mahathir Administration. It would be recalled that the two Islamic projects were meant to boost the Islamic credentials of the ruling Umno.

Whatever the intention behind them, they did not face problem as the ruling party wields an overwhelming majority in parliament. This has made it easier for Umno to make the necessary changes to the prevalent laws and practices to facilitate something which was previously considered odd and impossible to do.

Such a prerequisite is not at the disposal of PAS at the moment. And this is actually the problem. Funny enough, Mohd Amar has denied the importance of the key factor, namely winning the federal power.

And strangely enough he has counted the support of the party’s main nemesis, Umno. This is indeed mind-boggling as it underlines the rejection, not only the constitutional system but also the political system.

Mohd Amar seems to have forgotten that hudud has never been in Umno’s agenda. Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has made that clear. Religious Affairs Minister Datuk Seri Jamil Khir may have impressed Mohd Amar but the number one Umno leader is still not on the same wavelength with PAS.

Up to now, Jamil has not been vocal on the hudud implementation. On the other hand, there are many Umno leaders who are more in tune with Najib. Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah has stated that hudud would bring disunity among Malaysians. Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohamed said that if Umno wanted to do it, the party would have done it long time ago.

Surely, the Kelantan Deputy Menteri Besar and all the hudud proponents must have realised by now that their proposed bill is unlikely to get the nod from Umno.

Dr Abdul Aziz Bari is formerly IIUM law professor who now teaches at Unisel. He is also a Senior Fellow at think tank IDEAS.
- See more at: http://www.theantdaily.com/Article.aspx?ArticleId=21749#sthash.qVF8kIp2.dpuf

Fernandes: Words cannot express how sorry I am

Group CEO of AirAsia Tony Fernandes says words cannot express how sorry he is for family members who lost loved ones on the plane that crashed.

FMT

JAKARTA: Family members broke down in uncontrollable sobs when news trickled in that debris and at least six bodies were being recovered from waters where the AirAsia plane carrying their loved ones had crashed.

Seconds later Group CEO of AirAsia Tony Fernandes tweeted, “My heart is filled with sadness for all the families involved in QZ 8501.

“On behalf of AirAsia my condolences to all. Words cannot express how sorry I am.”

“I am rushing to Surabaya. Whatever we can do at Airasia we will be doing.”

The AirAsia plane travelling from Surabaya to Singapore lost contact with air traffic control Sunday morning with 155 Indonesians, three South Koreans, and one person each from Singapore, Malaysia, France and Britain on board.

A massive search and rescue effort was mounted with approximately 30 ships and 21 aircraft from Indonesia, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea covering up to 10,000 square nautical miles. Indonesia was leading the effort.

Malaysia is deeply saddened by tragedy

This is indeed a trying time for those affected.

FMT

KUALA LUMPUR: AirAsia chief executive Tony Fernandes Tuesday expressed his grief to the relatives of the 162 passengers and crew who were on board Flight QZ8501 after wreckage and bodies were spotted at sea.

“My heart is filled with sadness for all the families involved in QZ8501. On behalf of AirAsia my condolences to all. Words cannot express how sorry I am,” he wrote on Twitter.

Fernandes said he was rushing to Surabaya in Indonesia, where the plane took off on Sunday bound for Singapore and where relatives have gathered.

“Our thoughts and prayers remain with the families and friends of our passengers and colleagues on board QZ8501,” his Malaysia-based airline said in a statement.

It said employees of affiliate AirAsia Indonesia, which operated the crashed plane, had been sent to the site in the Karimata Strait where debris was found and would fully cooperate in the investigation.

AirAsia Indonesia announced it would invite family members to Surabaya, “where a dedicated team of care providers will be assigned to each family to ensure that all of their needs are met”.

Out of the 162 passengers and crew on board, 155 were Indonesian.

The accident was the third disaster this year involving a Malaysian-owned carrier.

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared in March while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew.

In July another Malaysia Airlines flight — MH17 — was shot down over unrest-hit Ukraine, killing all 298 on board.

Malaysia’s Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said his country “stands in solidarity with the families and loved ones of those onboard (the AirAsia flight)and offers our deepest condolences”.

“This is indeed a trying time for those affected and Malaysia is deeply saddened by this tragedy,” Liow said in a statement, offering Indonesia all possible help.

- AFP

Nigerian to hang for drug offence

Found guilty trafficking more than 2kg of methamphetamine.

FMT

SHAH ALAM: A Nigerian man was sentenced to the gallows by the High Court here after he was found guilty of trafficking 2,150.4 grammes of methamphetamine at the KL International Airport (KLIA), Sepang, four years ago.

Judge Abdul Halim Aman made the decision on Ibe Godwin Uzochukwu, 37, after he was satisfied with the arguments of the prosecution who managed to submit a prima facie case.

Abdul Halim in his judgement said the court found the defence of the accused was just utter denial.

The accused was charged with committing the offence at the Exit Route, KLIA Arrival Hall, at 4.30pm on July 1, 2011. He was charged under Section 39B(1)(a) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952 which is punishable under Section 39B (2), of the same act which carries the mandatory death sentence.

Six prosecution witnesses and a defence witness were called during the trial. Prosecution was handled by Deputy Public Prosecutor Rashidah Abu Bakar while the accused was represented by counsel Luqman Mazlan.

- BERNAMA

Kita Perlu Bertindak Sebagai Satu Pasukan

Kejadian bencana banjir besar kali ini merupakan antara yang paling buruk dalam sejarah Malaysia dan telah memberi kesan kepada lebih 220,000 orang di 5 buah negeri dan mengakibatkan kerosakan kepada terlalu banyak harta benda awam dan peribadi. Pada masa yang sama, begitu ramai rakyat Malaysia – tanpa mengenal usia, jantina, kaum, mahupun beda politik – telah tampil menghulurkan bantuan dalam bentuk dana, barangan keperluan, dan tenaga.

Saya telah berhubung dengan Dato’ Menteri Besar Selangor, YAB Mohamed Azmin Ali dan meminta beliau memberikan bantuan sebanyak yang mampu. Saya juga telah mengarah seluruh jentera parti di semua negeri agar turut membantu dalam usaha pengagihan barangan keperluan serta kerja-kerja pembersihan di kawasan-kawasan di mana air bah telah surut.

Saya menggesa agar semua pihak bertindak sebagai satu pasukan, dan menyokong langkah Kerajaan Persekutuan dalam usaha menangani bencana ini, serta menggesa agar diluluskan peruntukan segera untuk makanan dan ubat-ubatan, terutama untuk kawasan-kawasan kritikal.

Saya juga mengusulkan supaya Kerajaan Pusat menyediakan satu rancangan yang menyeluruh untuk memperbaiki atau membangunkan semula rumah-rumah yang telah musnah akibat banjir besar ini.

Saya, Azizah dan seluruh keluarga KEADILAN terus memanjangkan doa kepada Allah SWT agar bencana ini akan reda, dan diringankan beban yang dialami semua yang terkesan.

ANWAR IBRAHIM
29 Disember 2014

What has Umno/BN government learned from natural disasters? – Nawawi Mohamad

Malaysia has experienced several natural disasters which resulted in loss of lives and properties starting back in December 1993 with the collapse of two blocks of the Highland Towers, then the tsunami in 2004, recent Cameron Highlands landslides and the latest being the unprecedented floods in Kelantan, Pahang and Terengganu.

By the way, with so frequent flooding, we ought to be professional in facing them by now. Unfortunately, we are never ready and never prepared.

In the Highland Towers tragedy, we lacked experience such that the Japanese Civil Defence sent a team to help in the search and rescue effort. Search and rescue teams from Singapore, France, United Kingdom and the United States also came to help.

Besides helping, they also showed us the relevant techniques and the equipment they used in disasters. In fact, at the end of the search, the Japanese left their equipment and donated them to Malaysia.

From that incident, Malaysia formed its own Search and Rescue Team under the Fire Department. Our team had also been sent overseas to help disaster victims, like in Aceh during the tsunami in 2004. Naturally, every Malaysian should feel proud that we have our own reliable team and managed to help others in foreign countries as well.

Besides the elite team mentioned above, we also have several non-governmental organisations that play significant roles both at home and overseas. We have other agencies like JKR, JPA, PDRM, military and volunteers who at times have been at the forefront in the rescue efforts.

Malaysians are generally generous and we are all proud to be Malaysians in that sense. We also have the means: the equipment, machinery, resources and manpower to undertake the search, rescue and help victims in almost any natural disaster. We can do it.

But at the government and political levels, our ministers and politicians have not shown their will to improve themselves. Despite having declared that they work for the people since it is the people who put them into power anyway, at these times of need they seem to be lost and preoccupied with their own personal world.

We all know that Datuk Seri Najib Razak was holidaying and golfing in Hawaii, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein was said to be in London, loud-mouth Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi was quiet as a mouse, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim was also said to be in Australia and Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yasin was not in control.

Never mind the politicians but even if they want to have fun while the people are facing hardship, make sure that there is a system established and could run on auto-pilot.

The Umno/Barisan Nasional government should set up a central command at the federal level with branches in every state to coordinate the various NGOs, volunteers, government agencies and above all the control of correct information should be given to the public.

Coordination is important so that every area is covered by the various teams and overlapping of efforts could be avoided. The disaster command centre will also be able to know the exact amount of resources at hand, and what kind of help is needed most.

Just look at the recent blunder as reported in the papers when TNB managed to send 45 gensets to Pahang and only 1 genset to Kelantan despite the latter being affected most.

TNB has limited logistics resources and they are not a logistics specialist either. If there had been a proper disaster management, some form of transport could be provided, may be by the military to help send the gensets where they are most needed.

The centre should only have one contact number, which will be connected to several help and information lines. Do not give the individual contact numbers of the NGOs, government departments and agencies because the central command must be the reference point. None of them should act alone, all should be under the central command and be coordinated efficiently.

There must also be a website meant to cater for any disaster where everybody can reach and not depend on the social media which most of the time spread false or half-truths. The website should be interactive where applicable so that those who need to know feel more comfortable.

The Umno/BN government must also educate the people in the flood-prone areas to be ready with survival supplies: food, drinking water, clothes, medicines, toiletries and other necessities should be carried along during evacuation.

The whole supply could be in the form of standard ration placed in a lightweight bag which could have multiple uses. For instance, it could be used as a life buoy if the victims are swept away. Add in an identification beacon for easy searching.

What we have now is the National Security Council (MKN) which is lousy but we do not feel secure. They have done nothing much except simply to exist and may be just to get paid. And nothing else except blunders in every disaster that we faced.

It seems the Umno/BN government has not learned much, if not nothing, from the disasters that we have had. Now if Najib and all the politicians want to go elsewhere during any disaster, please do something about it. – December 29, 2014.

* Nawawi Mohamad reads The Malaysian Insider.

- See more at: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/sideviews/article/what-has-umno-bn-government-learned-from-natural-disasters-nawawi-mohamad#sthash.05kCBOk8.dpuf

Najib Describes Floods In Kelantan As Major Disaster

KOTA BAHARU, Dec 30 (Bernama) -- Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak has described the severe floods faced by Kelantan as a major disaster which has brought much destruction.

Najib, who observed the effects caused by the major floods in Gua Musang and Kuala Krai today, said the two districts concerned were the worst hit areas this time.

"They (residents) consider the disaster not as a flood phenomenon but a major catastrophe because the water level rose so high and rapidly to the extent that many houses were submerged," he said at a press conference at the Sultan Ismail Petra Airport, Pengkalan Chepa, here today, after observing the affected districts.

Also accompanying the Prime Minister during the visit was International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed, who is also chairman of the Kelantan Flood Disaster Committee.

Najib said that besides observing personally the houses that were totally destroyed and badly damaged, he was informed that hundreds of residents had their homes destroyed and had no place to live in.

"I see so much destruction and it is very depressing and so sad," he said, adding that the government would take several actions to assist the flood victims in the Gua Musang and Kuala Krai districts.

The Prime Minister said the government was now making continuous efforts to assist the flood victims who were placed at the relief centres and also helping them to return home after the flood had receded.

He said the government would make an evaluation of every house that was destroyed or damaged due to the floods as soon as possible.

"The action that must be taken is to build a temporary home for the victims who had lost their homes to the floods," he said.

Najib said the government would build permanent homes for the flood victims in Kuala Krai in in an area that was safer from the floods.

However, the federal government would discuss with the Kelantan state government as the land to be turned into the new settlement area was under the jurisdiction of the state government.

The Prime Minister said construction of houses on river land reserves could not be allowed because of the high risk of being affected by the floods.

Asked whether the rampant opening of land on hill slopes in the two districts was the main factor for the floods, Najib did not rule out the possibility of human negligence being a contributing factor for the disaster.

"Rampant opening of land especially for logging has an effect on the environment because there is no natural retention to stop the water from flowing directly to the river swiftly," he said.

The numerous logs floating in the river also had an effect when they became stuck under the bridges blocking the water from flowing and thus spilling over to the surrounding areas resulting in major floods.

"This is a lesson for us to take action to ensure sustainable development and a reminder from Allah SWT to us actually, so we must remember the guidance contained in the Al Quran that humans are actually the cause, God will not be cruel to us but we are being cruel to our own selves," he said.

The Prime Minister also praised the staff at the Kuala Krai Hospital when parts of the hospital were inundated and yet they were able to manage the patients and flood victims seeking shelter at the hospital in a good manner.

"What the nurses and doctors at the hospital did was beyond normal as they were under pressure, yet the services rendered by them deserved praise," he said.

Najib also praised the efforts of the government agencies and the Malaysian Armed Forces to rescue victims who were trapped by the floods.

Asked whether the cost for building the houses and other infrastructure that were damaged was included in the RM500 million allocation for the flood victims that was announced recently, Najib said the government would provide another allocation for this purpose.

-- BERNAMA