Haste led to mistake in emigration figures, says deputy minister
KUALA LUMPUR: A total of 106,000 Malaysians had given up their citizenship and emigrated since independence, Deputy Home Affairs Minister Datuk Tan Chai Ho said yesterday.
He said his recent statement, reported by the New Straits Times on July 10, that 106,000 Malaysians had surrendered their citizenship in the last 11 years was wrong.
Apologising, Tan said the mistake arose from a miscommunication between him and one of his officers.
"My officer was in a hurry to give me the numbers and got mixed up with the dates."
He said he also had to double check the breakdown by race. In his earlier statement, Tan said of the 106,000, 79,199 were Malays, 25,107 Chinese and 1,347 Indians.
However, Home Affairs Minister Datuk Mohd Radzi Sheikh Ahmad is reported to have given the breakdown yesterday as 10,411 Malay, 86,708 Chinese, 8,667 Indian and 847 other races.
Radzi also said only 1,720 Malays had surrendered their citizenship between 1996 and April this year.
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Huh?!! Why the painstaking effort by the Home Affairs Minister in emphasising the fact that the majority of Malaysians giving up their citizenship are in fact Chinese and not Malays? One could almost feel the knock on the head that he gave his deputy. Don't get me wrong. I am all for accurate information. But how do you judge what is accurate information? Is it possible in Malaysia? How could the figures given by the deputy minister and the minister be so different? You would have thought that they share the same database. Am I being paranoid? Perhaps. But my suspicion is being reinforced by Radzi's emphasis that only 1,720 Malays had given up their citizenship in the last 10 years.
Is it so inconceivable that some Malays have decided that the "land of milk and honey" for their race is not for them? Do they not appreciate their preferential treatment? Does the fact that the non-Bumiputera companies in Malaysia have to carve out 30% of their hard-earned wealth and give it to the Malays not enticed them to stay back and "eat their cake"? Surely 30 years or so years of New Economic Policy persuasion should make it inconceivable for any rational minded Malays not to stay put and pursue greener pastures? Or perhaps, the NEP did not achieve what it set out to do? The rich Malays got richer and the poor gets left behind. Was the policy just an excuse for the perpetuation of corruption?
Immigration and emigration is good for the country. It has been happening since Biblical times. Look at the United States of America. It is the most powerful and richest country on earth. No doubt the strength of the country is down to the fact that almost every race in the US is an immigrant race. It brings the best in the world together, and it still does.
So why are the few Malays who left the country such an embarrassment for the Home Affairs Minister? So, what if it is only a couple of thousand and not eighty thousand? Why is it that the country still insist on single citizenship? The masses of Malaysian who left may not be physically or financially dependent on the country. Nevertheless, the emotional and family bonds are still very strong. The majority on Malaysians I know have not given up their citizenship despite being away for decades from their homeland. It would strengthen the country if dual or multiple citizenship is allowed. Take India for instance. In the last few years, they have recognised that for their country to industrialise successfully, they have to attract back the many who had left. These people not only brings back expertise, but also hard cash earned abroad which is vital for investments. Dual citizenship? Yeah....bring it on!!!
Saturday 21 July 2007
Wednesday 18 July 2007
Adult Philosophy??
Mingle2 -
Huh..is my blog now for adults only? Apparently, this rating is based on the words in the blog such as "abortion", "sex", "murder", "death", "kill" and "dead"; being the most frequent words! Oh dear! Better lighten up...
Monday 2 July 2007
Ethical Dying?
Mom sues over killer's 90-minute execution
TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) -- The mother of a condemned inmate whose execution took an hour longer than is typical sued the head of Ohio's prisons on Monday.
art.clark.ap.jpg
It took 90 minutes for Joseph Clark to die during his execution in May.
It took almost 90 minutes to carry out the execution of Joseph Clark in May 2006. The lawsuit, filed in a Cincinnati federal court, said the execution amounted to unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment. Executions last about 20 minutes on average.
A message seeking comment was left for the prisons department Monday but was not returned.
In a separate lawsuit, a group of 15 inmates are challenging the state's injection process, arguing the procedure may cause prisoners to suffer during an execution.
Prison staff had problems finding a useable vein on Clark, and one vein they did use collapsed. The execution team also apparently tried to administer the lethal drugs through the original IV line by mistake, according to written accounts that the execution team is required to submit.
During the first injection attempt, Clark finally pushed himself up and said, "It don't work."
During the second attempt at finding a vein, he asked, "Can you just give me something by mouth to end this?"
Clark, 57, was sentenced to die in November 1984 for killing gas station attendant David Manning in Toledo.
The problems during the execution led the state to change its lethal injection process to ensure that veins can be found more carefully and quickly to avoid similar delays.
But in May, an execution team again struggled to find veins in another inmate's arm. Christopher Newton died nearly two hours after the scheduled start of his execution.
************************************************************************************
This issue about finding the vein of the condemned is why in some states in the US, they are trying to enlist the co-operation of anesthesiologists in carrying out the execution. This is because cannulating a vein is the expertise of the profession. It is usually easy to do. However, in some case it can prove impossible and even anesthesiologists find it a great challenge to do so.
Those who are supporting the involvement say that it is justified because the condemned can have an easier death. The physician can facilitate a painless and smooth death. Not to do so, would have them suffered the fate of those in the above article.
Those who are against, object on the ground that the main duty of a physician is to preserve life, and not kill it. The question is that, "if you know that your doctor kills for a living, would you also trust him to save your life?" Would the physician's judgment be clouded over time? The Nazis doctors who participated in gassing the millions of Jews use the same justification as the above. The Jews would have to die anyway, so might as well give them a painless death. They observed that those who were gassed to death "looks peaceful". So, were the Nazis doctors right in doing so? Execution used to be done in front of a firing squad by soldiers. The reason it had stopped was that the soldiers would suffered severe psychological disturbances over a period of time, and could not continue to carry out that duty. Therefore executions are being sanitised and changed to death by injections.
So, what is your verdict? Anyone care to comment? Should physicians be involved in executions?
Just a thought. In the age of globalisation, perhaps these condemned prisoners can be shipped of to China. They loved to execute prisoners there and sell of the body parts. That, however, is another different debate altogether...........
TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) -- The mother of a condemned inmate whose execution took an hour longer than is typical sued the head of Ohio's prisons on Monday.
art.clark.ap.jpg
It took 90 minutes for Joseph Clark to die during his execution in May.
It took almost 90 minutes to carry out the execution of Joseph Clark in May 2006. The lawsuit, filed in a Cincinnati federal court, said the execution amounted to unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment. Executions last about 20 minutes on average.
A message seeking comment was left for the prisons department Monday but was not returned.
In a separate lawsuit, a group of 15 inmates are challenging the state's injection process, arguing the procedure may cause prisoners to suffer during an execution.
Prison staff had problems finding a useable vein on Clark, and one vein they did use collapsed. The execution team also apparently tried to administer the lethal drugs through the original IV line by mistake, according to written accounts that the execution team is required to submit.
During the first injection attempt, Clark finally pushed himself up and said, "It don't work."
During the second attempt at finding a vein, he asked, "Can you just give me something by mouth to end this?"
Clark, 57, was sentenced to die in November 1984 for killing gas station attendant David Manning in Toledo.
The problems during the execution led the state to change its lethal injection process to ensure that veins can be found more carefully and quickly to avoid similar delays.
But in May, an execution team again struggled to find veins in another inmate's arm. Christopher Newton died nearly two hours after the scheduled start of his execution.
************************************************************************************
This issue about finding the vein of the condemned is why in some states in the US, they are trying to enlist the co-operation of anesthesiologists in carrying out the execution. This is because cannulating a vein is the expertise of the profession. It is usually easy to do. However, in some case it can prove impossible and even anesthesiologists find it a great challenge to do so.
Those who are supporting the involvement say that it is justified because the condemned can have an easier death. The physician can facilitate a painless and smooth death. Not to do so, would have them suffered the fate of those in the above article.
Those who are against, object on the ground that the main duty of a physician is to preserve life, and not kill it. The question is that, "if you know that your doctor kills for a living, would you also trust him to save your life?" Would the physician's judgment be clouded over time? The Nazis doctors who participated in gassing the millions of Jews use the same justification as the above. The Jews would have to die anyway, so might as well give them a painless death. They observed that those who were gassed to death "looks peaceful". So, were the Nazis doctors right in doing so? Execution used to be done in front of a firing squad by soldiers. The reason it had stopped was that the soldiers would suffered severe psychological disturbances over a period of time, and could not continue to carry out that duty. Therefore executions are being sanitised and changed to death by injections.
So, what is your verdict? Anyone care to comment? Should physicians be involved in executions?
Just a thought. In the age of globalisation, perhaps these condemned prisoners can be shipped of to China. They loved to execute prisoners there and sell of the body parts. That, however, is another different debate altogether...........
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