The Third Force Politics in Malaysia; Ku Li on survival mode!

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Cometh the ‘third force’

ANALYSIS By JOCELINE TAN
joceline@thestar.com.my

The third force in Malaysian politics is getting more crowded as they vie to be the kingmaker in the event of a hung Parliament but some, like Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, may be eyeing the Prime Minister’s post.

TENGKU Razaleigh Hamzah was all dressed up for what seemed like a normal press conference. For someone who once admitted that he is colour blind, he was a picture of immaculate grooming.
Actually, he could have been mistaken for a prosperous banker or, dare we say, a Prime Minister-in-waiting?

The Kelantan royal politician had called the press conference to announce that Angkatan Amanah Merdeka, the NGO headed by him, was now open for business as it has been officially registered.

Amanah has joined a crowded field of what has become known as the “third force” in Malaysian politics, except that Tengku Razaleigh has still got one foot in Umno.

The third force groups range from small political parties like Parti Cinta Malaysia and kita, headed by millionaire lawyer Datuk Zaid Ibrahim, to civil society groups like the Malaysian Civil Liberties Movement (MCLM) headed by Haris Ibrahim. Even Perkasa is a third force group in its own right.

At one level, these groups are signalling there is a niche out there for those who have rejected the old politics of Barisan Nasional but have not completely bought into the so-called new politics of Pakatan Rakyat.

At another level, they are essentially politicians aspiring to be the “king-maker” in the event of a hung Parliament in the next general election.

“Each group comes to the table with a slightly different political message to sell,” said political analyst and UCSI academic Dr Ong Kian Ming.

MCLM, said Dr Ong, comprises pro-Pakatan activists and intellectuals who aim to address the issue of poor quality of candidates in Pakatan, especially from PKR.

KITA, on its part, has emerged as the only Malay-led party that has stood up for equal rights among all Malaysians and is not afraid to say it openly. It has even spoken up for religious conversions.

As Dr Ong noted, some of these groups are looking for a platform and voice, some comprise indivi­duals who are looking for political survival while a few are hoping to cash out at the right time.

“On their own, they cannot knock out the established parties but they can cause a stomachache or headache,” said publisher Datuk A. Kadir Jasin.

Some of the third force groups are having headaches of their own.

For instance, kita, which was launched with a big bang earlier this year is embroiled in an internal feud even before it can really take off.

MCLM caused a stir when it was launched from London with the support of blogger-in-exile Raja Petra Kamarudin.

It has since nominated the well-known human rights lawyer Malik Imtiaz Sarwar and the less-known dentist Dr Nedunchelian Vengu to run in the general election.

The next general election is go­­ing to be fierce and there will be a wild scramble to be candidates.

Pakatan is going to have as big and as ugly a headache as the Barisan in ma­­n­­­­aging people fighting to be candidates.

Amanah, insisted its vice-president Wan Saiful Wan Jan, is strictly a civil society body.

“It is not like MCLM or kita nor is it about election candidates or where they should run. It’s about a group of people who want to make a difference,” he said.

Nevertheless, Tengku Razaleigh’s claim that he needs a new platform to speak because Umno restricts him does not really add up.

It is indeed a selective pro­cess to be ­picked to speak at the Umno general assembly but over and above th­at annual event, no one has been able to stop Tengku Razaleigh from speaking his mind and he has caused ripples with many of his comments.



He has a blog and journalists rush to his Langgak Golf “White House” each time he schedules a press conference.

In fact, he makes news because he is such a famous Umno face, he says things other Umno leaders would not say.

Speaking as the head of yet another NGO would not have the same impact. In the meantime, the perception that he is positioning himself for the Prime Minister post will persist.

Actually, he is more experienced and accomplished than the other aspiring candidates, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and Datuk Seri Hadi Awang put together.

According to a Pakatan Rakyat insider, he could have been the catalyst had he come on board Anwar’s Sept 16 scheme in 2008.

He and Anwar met several times in the days leading up to Sept 16 but nothing happened because they simply did not have the numbers and even if they did, they would have ended up fighting each other for the top post.

Tengku Razaleigh has missed the boat one time too many and he is now banking on his final boat.

Ku Li goes on survival mode

COMMENT By BARADAN KUPPUSAMY

Critics say Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah is clutching at straws to remain relevant at a time when national politics has narrowed to a divisive tussle between Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat. There is no place for a third force like his newly-formed Angkatan Amanah Merdeka.

FORMER Umno vice-president Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah has been vociferous in his criticism of the party and its policies, yet he says there is no room in it for dissent.

As president of the newly-formed Angkatan Amanah Merdeka, a non-governmental organisation that seeks to return to the comforting policies of first prime minister Tunku Abdul Rahman, he hopes to remain relevant.

Ku Li – as he is popularly known – is trying for the political main chance at a time when his role in Umno and the country is fast dwindling.

Amanah is just another platform for him, in a career of many ups and downs for the political main chance that has missed him or, rather, the chances that he has missed.

An aristocrat, he wanted to be premier ever since he challenged Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad in the 1987 battle for the Umno presidency. He lost by a handful of votes, the nearest he would ever come.

His ally in that battle, former deputy president Tun Musa Hitam, made his peace and bred that power ambition out of him. But Ku Li is different. He keeps at it.

With Amanah, Ku Li is trying to keep his hopes for the top post alive.

Critics say he is clutching at straws to remain relevant at a time when national politics has narrowed to a divisive tussle between Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat.

There is no place for a third force like Amanah, an NGO in a field of many NGOs bidding for a political role.

The Gua Musang MP has taken a critical view of Umno ever since the original party was dissolved in 1988 and he went on to form Parti Semangat 46 that contested against the Barisan in the 1990 general election.

His new party joined forces with PAS, the DAP and the Indian Progressive Front to form the Gagasan Rakyat grouping which failed in its bid to oust the ruling party.

After failing to unseat Dr Mahathir in 1990, Semangat 46 closed shop and by 1995 Ku Li had returned to Umno.

When Dr Mahathir sacked Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim in 1998, Ku Li had an opportunity to join forces with the axed deputy prime minister and take over the reformasi movement. But he failed to rise to the occasion, preferring to watch from the sidelines.

Unfortunately for Ku Li, he again missed the main chance when the top job moved to Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi after Dr Mahathir stepped down in 2003.

Ku Li tried to challenge Abdullah for the job but failed to get enough nominations because Umno coalesced around Abdullah and made short work of Ku Li’s attempt.

Throughout the six years of the Abdullah era, Ku Li stayed in Umno.

Anwar was released from prison in 2004 and began mobilising his supporters for the big polls battle in 2008, which netted for the Pakatan five states and 82 seats in Parliament.

In the uncertainties that followed Anwar’s undemocratic grab for power vis-a-vis the Sept 16 fiasco, Ku Li briefly came into the picture as possibly bringing to Anwar several Umno MPs to make up the necessary numbers to form a government.

But the promise never materialised and Anwar was not able to muster enough MPs to make the magic numbers although he did send emissaries in a hilarious chase that went all the way to Taiwan.

After the disaster of 2008 and with Abdullah giving way to Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak in April 2009, Ku Li saw his chances for the top job shrinking even further.

Najib began the transformation of the country and, by most counts, is winning the hearts and minds of many Malays and Indian voters although the Chinese voters are still holding out.

The country is firmly on a path of no return to the old ways with the repeal of the ISA, banishment laws and media freedom. Ku Li is left, still in Umno, criticising the reforms as inadequate.

On the other side, Anwar is facing a second sodomy trial and other sex related accusations even as he tries to rally his supporters as he did in 2008.

Pakatan Rakyat is, however, in a survival mode and seeking to keep as much of the 2008 win as it possibly could.

With the national political scenery changed Ku Li finds that he is being squeezed out and so he came up with his Amanah, which is a vehicle to remain in the public eye.

Who knows the political circumstances might change again and Ku Li might just land himself the top job, although the chances of that has long eclipsed.

Related articles

• Razaleigh criticises the pace of reforms (dinmerican.wordpress.com)

The Roots of Success !

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Lisa See and the roots of her success

By AKSHITA NANDA 

An author’s search for her Chinese roots has led her to write critically acclaimed novels set in her ancestral land.

CHINESE-AMERICAN author Lisa See watches about 100 movies a year, but the one film she is too afraid to catch is based on her own best-selling novel of 19th-century China, Snow Flower And The Secret Fan (the movie opened in Singapore last month but there is no Malaysian release date yet).

The story of foot-binding and female friendship is brought to the screen by Chinese-American director Wayne Wang of Joy Luck Club fame. Chinese actress Li Bingbing and South Korea’s Gianna Jun play the main roles of two devoted friends.

In a recent telephone interview, See, 56, confesses that during the July screening of the movie in New York, she posed for photographs with the director and actors, then sat outside the theatre for the duration of the film.

Chinese at heart: Author Lisa See is enamoured by her Chinese heritage.

“It made me too nervous to sit in with other people,” the California native, whose father is Chinese, says over the telephone from Colorado, where she is on vacation. “Now I understand why actors, during interviews, say they have not seen their movies!”

Snow Flower And The Secret Fan, published in 2005, is the first of See’s works to be adapted for the big screen and is among the most popular of her four evocative literary novels of China.

She declined to write the script – “I’m a novelist, not a scriptwriter” – but was insistent that the period details in the movie be accurate, down to cooking rice in a pot, without stirring.

See’s latest book, Dreams Of Joy, tackles the Cultural Revolution in China and topped the New York Times’ bestseller list when it was released in June.

She has also written three thrillers about Beijing detective Liu Hulan, and a biography of her Chinese-American grandfather, On Gold Mountain (1995, Vintage).

That family history inspired a five-month exhibition at Los Angeles’ Autry Museum of Western Heritage (now the Autry National Centre) in 2000 and an opera from the Los Angeles Opera company that same year.

Right now, See is working on a book about the “chop suey circuit” of night clubs in 1930s America. These clubs were known for their Asian dancers and performers, often touted as “the Chinese Fred Astaire” or the “Chinese Ginger Rogers”.



The daughter of Washington Post book critic Carolyn See and anthropologist Richard See, Lisa says her desire to learn more about her roots inspires most of her writing.

“I’m Chinese in my heart,” she says, even as her red hair and freckles, legacies of her mother’s Irish ancestry, give some pause.

Her parents divorced when she was three but much of her childhood was spent with her father’s family, at the antique stores her grandfather Fong See established in Los Angeles’ Chinatown.

“My mum and I moved a lot because of her work and the Chinese side of the family stayed where they were. To me, that was a part of my life that was most secure,” she recalls.

To this day, rice is comfort food for her two grown sons and she translates family conversations in Cantonese for her husband, lawyer Richard Kendall, though she insists that she is not fluent. “I think something happens in families, where you can understand one another,” she says.

Influenced by her mother’s choice of career, See, a graduate of Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, turned her bachelor’s degree in humanities towards writing.

She was industry magazine Publishers Weekly’s West Coast correspondent for 13 years, wrote freelance for magazines such as Vogue and also wrote three books in the 1980s under the pseudonym Monica Highland with her mother and her mother’s partner John Espy.

“It was great fun, it was like an apprenticeship,” she says of historical novels Lotus Land and 110 Shanghai Road, and art book Greetings From Southern California.

It seemed natural then to tell the actual story of her father’s family in On Gold Mountain. She also wrote her first detective novel, Flower Net, set in modern Beijing, partly to provide a window into Chinese culture.

“I get to go so much deeper into the traditions and holidays that are so much a part of life that we’ve forgotten their meaning,” she says about her books. “Even though the books are not about my family exactly, they continue my family’s traditions.”

See is no armchair researcher. She first heard about nu shu, the women-only alphabet central to Snow Flower And The Secret Fan, while writing a review of a book about foot-binding. In order to find out more, she headed to China in 2002. With a translator, she visited villages in Hunan province via car, cart, boat and foot to interview women who might know of the language.

For Dreams Of Joy, her newest novel, she headed to China’s Anwei province and interviewed elderly folk who remembered the famine and hardship of Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward from 1958 to 1961. They shared stories of starvation, of families trading babies for food and in the hope that the child would fare better under foster care.

Asked if she was surprised by how easily the survivors opened up to her, she says no.

“I have found that people who are older want to tell you their stories. They have this attitude – ‘What can they do to me now?’ With my own grandmother, she felt that she had outlived her husband, friends, she could say whatever she wanted to say.

“People are willing to share their life stories with you if they know they are never going to see you again,” she adds.

Her research adds depth and texture to her novels, which are lauded by book reviewers and honoured for adding to the Chinese-American story.

The Los Angeles’ Chinese American Museum gave her its annual “historymaker” award in 2003, while the Organisation of Chinese American Women named her its 2001 Woman Of The Year.

Academics are also starting to pay her the sort of attention so far granted to the doyenne of Chinese-American literature, Maxine Hong Kingston, author of the 1976 memoir The Woman Warrior. Perhaps the only popular author ranked with Kingston in academia is Amy Tan, whose 1989 tearjerker The Joy Luck Club turned the sub-genre into a mass-market success.

Now See’s critically acclaimed 2009 novel, Shanghai Girls, is seen by some as a seminal work. The prequel to Dreams Of Joy and set during the Sino-Japanese conflict of the 1940s, Shanghai Girls was also set last year as a text for a post-graduate class in Chinese-American literature at the National University of Singapore.

The university’s literature professor, Walter Lim, 52, is also including See in a book on the history of Chinese-American writing.

“She is part of the community of Chinese- American writers who are fashioning themselves into communicators and purveyors of history,” says Dr Lim, who has taught Chinese-American literature for more than two decades.

The author herself puts it this way: “I’ve always been interested in stories that are lost or have been covered up. It’s not always horrifying, like the Great Leap Forward, just something that people would be interested in.” – The Straits Times, Singapore/Asia News Network

Irrational fear abounds, jetting the Malay psyche!

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Irrational fear abounds

MUSINGS By MARINA MAHATHIR

Prejudice and discrimination, both rooted in fear of the unknown, can always be dispelled with better knowledge, at least in those willing to learn.

TEN years ago the world turned a decidedly nastier place for Muslims. Although Islamo­phobia already existed before Sept 11, the events that day ratcheted it up several notches. Suddenly Muslims in the United States and all over the world found themselves under intense scrutiny, much of it hostile.

Stereotypes abounded. Although Islam is a religion of peace, all Muslims were branded terrorists, undemocratic, violent, oppressors of women.

The only images seen in the media were of angry bearded men wielding weapons and shouting threats to the West. Only Muslim women covered head to toe in dour black, were seen. It did not help that some Muslims themselves provided fodder for these images.

Tales of aggression against Mus­lims abounded. Headscarves were pulled off, insults hurled and, at airports, anyone with the slightest tinge of an Arabic name was pulled out for special inspection. Some people suffered even more violence, resulting in injury and even death.

New perspective: One of the biggest boosts to the image of Islam and Muslims has been the Arab Spring where young Muslims, including women, were seen at the forefront of the revolution. – Reuters 

Sometimes entirely wrong people became victims of the prejudice. A Sikh man got shot because he wore a turban, a bunch of Orthodox Jewish rabbis were pulled off a plane because they were praying in a language other passengers didn’t understand.

Fear ruled and with it came prejudice and discrimination, much of it fuelled by the media. Most of it stemmed from ignorance about the world of Islam, which is not only large but also diverse.



A Muslim in the Middle East is culturally different from a Muslim in Asia, but that was not appreciated in much of the West. Indeed Middle Eastern Muslims comprise only 15% of the entire Muslim world. Further­more there are many Western Muslims who look and act no different from their fellow citizens.

Meanwhile, the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq only angered Muslims, who then reacted in ways that ingrained the stereotypes about them.

The early post-Sept 11 Islamo­phobic madness only lessened when much better information and knowledge about Islam and Muslims became available. This took two forms.

One, many Muslims took it upon themselves to educate non-Muslims about Islam, and in particular reached out to other faith communities to talk about their commonalities, rather than differences.

And two, thousands of students flocked to universities to learn more about Islam. Both Muslim and non-Muslim scholars of Islam did much to teach students about the real religion, rather than the one perpetuated by the media.

Ten years later, although it cannot be said that Islamophobia has disappeared, Western perspectives on Islam have become more measured and based on better knowledge. One of the biggest boosts to the image of Islam and Muslims has been the Arab Spring.

Suddenly the images of Muslims were young, modern, and protesting not about the West but about their own corrupt leaders. Although they did not explicitly talk about religion, in 2011 the Middle East became associated with the yearning for freedom and democracy, one not too different from what developed countries enjoyed.

Women were seen at the forefront of the revolution, both head-scarved and not, and changed the image of the oppressed Muslim woman.

It just goes to show that prejudice and discrimination, both rooted in fear of the unknown, can always be dispelled with better knowledge, at least in those willing to learn. There are of course many who simply refuse to open their hearts and minds to such enlightenment, but progress has been made in incremental steps.

It is also clear that very often those who steadfastly refuse to eliminate their prejudices do so because they think it is politically profitable to them. The loudest Islamophobes always seem to be politicians trying to win the populist vote. And the only way they maintain those votes is by keeping people ignorant. Hence, their refusal to engage at all with Muslims.

Every phobia about groups of people who are different from us works in the same way. They rely on stereotypes and on the fear that allowing these minority people the same basic rights as others would mean that they would demand more.

Thus, although no Muslim ever asked for it, some people in the US insist that there are plans to impose syariah law there. The media stokes the hysteria and stigmatisation. Unjust accusations and calls for depriving them of citizenship becomes the norm.

Although those baying for blood are small in number, they still make innocent people suffer. People who have never harmed anyone else suffer distrust and hostility from their former neighbours. Violence against them is justified, sometimes with religious backing. The entire atmosphere is poisoned by hate.

This past week, where some people seem to be proudly picking on the powerless, has reminded me of that Islamophobic hysteria. I fear for our country and where we are heading.

For sure public advocacy is here to stay, jetting the Malay psyche!

Nik Nazmi Nik AhmadTweet

CERITALAH By KARIM RASLAN newsdesk@thestar.com.my

Where in the past we would have dealt with controversial matters surreptitiously, nowadays such delicacy and tact are considered old-fashioned if not deceitful.

TO most onlookers, it would appear as if Malaysian public life had been hijacked by extremists – with Perkasa fronting ethnic nationalists and PAS’ ulama leading the religious fundamentalists.

Indeed, the notion of ‘Malay-ness’ is increasingly being determined by these two forces alone – leaving the “middle-ground” empty and forgotten.

At the same time, there’s also been a noticeable spike in identity politics as more and more people seek to define themselves according to race, religion or sexual preference – witness the Seksualiti Merdeka festival.

The once-hesitant ways in which Asians regarded hot-button social issues has been replaced in some parts by a more open, Western assertiveness.

When these two very different forces collide, the net result can be combustible. Moreover, it’s hard to see how these controversies can be resolved given the starkly opposing world-views in operation.

One thing’s for sure: we can’t turn the clock back. Public advocacy is here to stay. Where in the past we would have dealt with such matters surreptitiously, nowadays such delicacy and tact are considered old-fashioned if not deceitful – the hyper-transparent Wikileaks culture cuts all ways.

This also applies to hard-charging NGOs like PAGE who have been in the vanguard of the pro-PPSMI camp.



Looking back on the past, I cannot help but feel however that our previous willingness to live with internal contradictions and differences was also a hallmark of the “Malaysian Consensus” – basically an unwritten understanding to tolerate our country’s myriad complexities.

In essence, your private life and intellectual beliefs were your own business as long as you ‘towed the line’.
This epitomised the “middle-ground” of national politics. It wasn’t necessarily honest or straightforward, but it did steer us away from potentially destructive confrontations.

However, there are some figures who are trying to champion the “middle-ground” even though the Malaysian Consensus has to a large extent been lost.

These leaders are very important, since they act as a balancing force, bridging, negotiating and then resolving tensions between the various pressure groups.

At their best, they act as a kind of social and moral anchorage for the Malay community.

They’re definitely proud of being Malay and Muslim. On the other hand, they aren’t alarmist or defeatist like Perkasa. They refuse to exclude anyone due to race or religion and civil liberties matter to them. They also understand that politics is about discussion, debate and compromise.

Some are in PKR (Rafizi Ramli and Nurul Izzah Anwar), while others remain in Umno (Deputy Minister for Higher Eduction Saifuddin Abdullah). It could be argued that former minister turned maverick Datuk Shahrir Samad is their standard-bearer.

By certain measures MPs Khairy Jamaluddin and Nur Jazlan Mohamad also belong to this amorphous group.

They’re complemented by civil society stalwarts like the passionate activists in PAGE and the IDEAS Malaysia think-tank.

PKR state assemblyman for Seri Setia, Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad, is this group’s most prolific and impressive writer.

Just 28-years-old, he has published his second book Coming of Age: A Decade of Essays 2001-2011. I reviewed Nik Nazmi’s first offering Moving Forward: Malays for the 21st Century in 2009 and was eager to read his second.

Coming of Age is a collection of Nik Nazmi’s writings from his student days to his unexpected win in the 2008 general elections and his on-going career as a legislator. It covers an eclectic range of topics from Islam to football.

Thankfully, Nik Nazmi’s journey has not been at the cost of his belief in the transformative power of politics. From his writings and actions, he is able to straddle both Malay- and non-Malay milieus.

Indeed – and he freely admits it – Nik Nazmi is a product of the NEP’s success in creating a viable Malay middle-class. These are confident, public service-oriented young Malays who aren’t bound by the legacies of the past.

Born of the rakyat, they have the credibility to speak with the masses.

Malaysia needs these leaders to succeed. We need them to moderate and modulate the political and moral absolutes that Perkasa and the Islamists are trying to ingrain into the Malay psyche.

As Nik Nazmi writes: “At a time when people are talking about globalisation, communalism seems to be an outdated ‘ism’. Being open-minded about the realities of the world does not mean that we should forget our roots. We should all appreciate differences in heritage. We should not look at our respective cultures as a barrier, but an opportunity to learn from one another.”

Of course, there are differences amongst this new “Malay middle-ground”, such as over PPSMI — but that is to be expected.

What is more important is for them to continue to take a clear, principled and moderate stand on the great questions of the time, and show the world that not all Malay voices are reactionary or fearful.

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Jetting into the Malay psyche!

Malaysian education heavily politicised, Quality & English standard not up to par!

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Give everyone a choice in education

ANALYSIS by BADARAN KUPPUSAMY

Our education system is heavily politicised and needs to be de-politicised to offer good, simple and advancing education for all citizens – one they can be proud of.

SCIENCE and Mathematics were taught in English until all subjects switched to Bahasa Malaysia in 1970 under the national education policy.

Former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, worried over the decline of English and the poor employability of graduates who had been taught in Bahasa Malaysia, then decided to revert to teaching the two subjects in English, beginning in 2003.

Now, the Education Ministry, under persistent pressure from Bahasa Malaysia advocates, has decided to go back to teaching Science and Mathematics in the national language.

From English to Bahasa Malaysia, then back to English and again to Bahasa Malaysia.

We should not be playing kick-ball with the lives of young students who are subjected to enormous stress by such policy changes called by special interest groups.

Parents too are subjected to horrendous pressure as policy shifts come and go at the drop of a coin.

Parents want the best for their children; they want a good, simple and advancing education that arms the children with knowledge to compete in the world and succeed.

They want their children to be on par with other societies, like in Singapore or Hong Kong, which had inherited a colonial education system but decided to build on it, rather than pull it down.

Malaysians from Johor travel by bus in the early hours of the day to study in Singapore, while their parents take courses to keep up, communicate with and help in their children’s studies.

The world has become that competitive.

There was a referendum in Hong Kong after the former British colony was handed back to Chinese sovereignty in July 1997, whether to continue in English or switch to Mandarin.

Parents wanted to maintain English overwhelmingly.

In Hong Kong today, there is a system of dual languages, where Mandarin is taught along with English, attracting an international student clientele to Hong Kong.

Parents are important stakeholders in the field of education and know better what their children should get by way of a modern education.

Democracy offers alternatives and choices. You do not shut the door on any stakeholder.

The Parent Action Group for Education (PAGE), which is fighting to retain the learning of Science and Mathematics in English (PPSMI) policy, is spot on in pursuing its goal.

While the group is strongly supported by the MCA, MIC and Gerakan – all component parties of the Barisan Nasional – many in Umno also see the promise that an education in English holds for the children.

PAGE has submitted another memorandum to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, asking for special schools to teach the subjects in English. Najib will have to decide on the request because it is becoming a political hot potato.

Najib had said the era of “the Government knows best” had been long over. He has emphasised this several times to indicate that policymakers have to listen to all stakeholders and not go on a tangent of their own.

But his deputy Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, who is also Education Minister, has said the situation would be “chaotic” if the ministry were to provide facilities for the teaching of Science and Mathematics in both Bahasa Malaysia and English.

But there are practical solutions, such as hiring Indian teachers from overseas. They have a good proficiency in English and can teach well.

Our education system is heavily politicised and needs to be de-politicised to offer a good and simple education for all citizens – one they can be proud of.

Given the chance to decide, even parents in rural areas would vote for PPSMI as it gives their children a leg up in today’s competitive world.

Our society has developed many alternatives to the Bahasa Malaysia-only policy – private education, home schooling and international schools – which the Government throws open to all.

These centres of excellence in education come at a price. They are expensive and the poor cannot afford it.

So, the rich – of all races – escape our Bahasa Malaysia-only policy, study in alternative schools and eventually move overseas to continue their education and then stay back to work and live there.

There are, ironically, Africans, South Americans and other Asians enjoying a multi-cultural education in English in Malaysia.

If we insist on teaching only in Bahasa Malaysia, we will eventually have just Bahasa Malaysia-speaking students in a society that privately offers English-language education for anyone who wants it.

An estimated one million Malaysians have left for greener pastures abroad and we are now wooing them back through Talent Corp and also offering incentives to bring them back.

Never mind if things are initially “chaotic” – it is the Government’s responsibility to provide for all its citizens.
Eventually, we should aim to democratise the cluttered and over-burdened education system that is pulling various ethnic groups asunder. We need to provide choices for all – rich and poor.

English standard of undergrads still not up to par

M. Saraswathi

 Pix courtesy of sxc.hu

KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 6, 2011): Malaysia is on par or ahead of some of the regional countries in terms of investment in education. However, the quality of its undergraduates' command of English still remains an issue.

Dr Marie Aimee Tourres, a senior research fellow at the Department of Development Studies, Universiti Malaya, said it was crucial for graduates to have a good command of English to ensure they would be able to compete effectively, in the global job market.

Nevertheless, “in terms of education spending, Malaysia is comparable to some countries in the region based on the percentage spent over its gross domestic product (GDP) growth,” she told Bernama in an interview here.

She said Malaysia was actually spending more vis-a-vis other countries.

In Budget 2012, RM13.6 billion was allocated to the social sector, including education and training, health, welfare, housing and community development.

Dr Tourres said there was also a lot of focus given for training and re-training for graduates, which was important to continuously upgrade skilled and knowledge workers in the country.

However, the quality of undergraduates remains an issue in Malaysia, since the students find it difficult to grasp the English language.

"Language is definitely an issue,” she said, citing a recent publication by the World Bank entitled The Road to Academic Excellence, which was a study on what contributes to a world-class research university.

The study compared Universiti Malaya (UM) and National University of Singapore (NUS) in a chapter entitled The National University of Singapore and the University of Malaya: Common Roots and Different Paths.

In the report, it was stated that as NUS kept pace with the demands of a growing economy that sought to become competitive internationally, with English continuing as the language of instruction and research, UM began to focus inward as proficiency in English declined in favour of the national language.

The publication, which is based on a study conducted by two scholars, Philip Altbach and Jamil Salmi, also stated that because UM taught courses predominantly in the national language, it had much more limited internationalisation of programme, academic staff and student body.

"This generation will have to face international standard and competition in terms of job market, as part of globalisation," said Dr Tourres.

She cited Pakistan as an example, where she gives lectures.

"In Pakistan, although the people speak different dialects, next to the Urdu language, their English is better than our graduates,” she pointed out.

It made them more marketable in the competitive global environment, she noted.

"The immediate result of their English capacity is that you can find many Pakistanis who work for international organisations such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund,” noted Dr Tourres.

She believed that even if Malaysia gave more focus in English, the national language and culture could still prosper, provided that teaching was made interesting.

"More English in school will not deter Malay, Indian and Chinese culture per se. We should not mix the issue of a command of good language and the preservation of national heritage," she said.

As for the distribution of the book voucher worth RM200 to all Malaysian students in public and private local institutions of higher learning, matriculation as well as Form 6 students nationwide, she believed that it should be monitored to ensure that it served the purpose.

This assistance is expected to benefit 1.3 million students with an allocation of RM260 million.

“That is a lot of money. Probably, it could have been done based on meritocracy to ensure that it is properly utilised,” said Dr Tourres, pointing out that there were risks of students re-selling the voucher, especially when the new targeted generation lacked the reading habit and prefered to go online to search for their study materials. -- Bernama

Importance of being earnest

ON THE BEAT WITH WONG CHUN WAI

The DPM has said it would not be possible to use English in teaching Science and Mathematics. Let’s look at other options to improve proficiency in English.

WE all know and acknowledge that our standard of English has taken a beating. We all know that many of our teachers cannot even construct a sentence in English without grammatical errors, and many of them are teaching our kids the language.

We all know that many of our university lecturers are in the same boat too, as well as some of our politicians and senior government servants. For them, it is a struggle to speak in English.

A letter, presumably written by an examiner or a parent, that appeared in this newspaper’s education section last Sunday startled me. The writer made a comparison between our 2011 Penilaian Menengah Rendah (PMR) English paper and the 2011 International Competitions and Assessments for Schools (ICAS) English Reading Paper.

The latter is used to test students’ English proficiency in private and international schools, which have increasingly become the choice of urban Malaysian parents who can afford to send their children there.

Giving detailed comparisons, the writer claimed that the PMR English paper taken by our 15-year-olds is much easier than those taken by Year Four Malaysian students in private and international schools and Year Three Singaporean pupils in similar schools.

“How can we expect our local students to compete with students from other countries if the standard of English in our PMR exam is even lower than the standard of English required for Year Four pupils in private and international schools?” he asked.

In short, the PMR English paper is too easy. We have long cast doubts on the quality of our students who earn a string of distinctions. We hear grumbles that in some papers such as Physics, the grading is so ridiculously low you just need to answer a few questions to get the A, but that’s another story.

Older Malaysians – those who sat for Senior Cambridge (Form 5), Lower Certificate of Education (LCE) for Form Three, Malaysian Certificate of Education (MCE) for Fifth Formers and the Higher School Certificate (HSC) for Form Six – will vouch that the standard of English was much higher then.

The Prime Minister and his deputy Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin are products of the early education system which has enabled them to speak and write well in English. It is such a joy, for example, to listen to Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak delivering a speech in crisp English.

We know that much of the Cabinet deliberations are conducted in English. So are the Cabinet committee meetings, where most ministers find it more comfortable to express themselves in English.

When they attend international conferences, one or two ministers whose command of English is described as atrocious still have to use the language, but they would just read from a prepared text.

In a tweet last week, prominent human rights lawyer Malik Imtiaz lamented the poor English in the written judgment of a Judicial Commissioner. The legal reasoning was equally bad. This is sad because the Malaysian legal system is primarily based on English common law and most students have to use English textbooks.

I have just returned from India where I attended an international conference on the advertising industry. It was a joy to listen to people there – from the emcee, former Miss World Diana Hayden, to Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan to leaders of the industry – speak in English with confidence, eloquence and wit and without referring to a prepared text.

These people are able to speak so well because India has not allowed its nationalists to tear down the legacy of the British education system in the name of nationalism and race. Yes, there are millions in India who can only speak Hindi or other dialects but English remains in a dominant position.

In Singapore, the medium of instruction in schools is English and to ensure that the young get the best education, teachers are among the best paid in the island republic’s civil service.

Certainly, those given the responsibility to nurture, teach and inspire young minds deserve the best, but let the best join the profession and keep out the mediocre.

The DPM has said it would not be possible to use English in teaching Science and Mathematics (PPSMI), citing possible chaotic situations if parents were given the option to decide if they wished to use English or Bahasa Malaysia.

He said some teachers were not efficient in teaching English and that it would also be hard for the Education Ministry to plan.

I think these are sound and valid reasons but we must also look for other options. It is not a zero sum game. We should not see the controversy from a “them and us” situation. Neither do we want politicians and groups to cloud the issue further by using race to silence proponents of the PPSMI.

We can introduce English Literature in schools and also increase the teaching hours in English as the next step. Even Physical Education, Art and Moral Studies classes can be taught in English.

We will go nowhere if we continue to cite lack of English teachers as the reason why we cannot move forward. The situation we are in is a reflection of the failure of our education system as far as English is concerned. It is a statement of our lack of commitment.

Let’s hire teachers and trainers from India and other Commonwealth countries, compile a data bank of retired teachers who still want to contribute, and even graduates who are keen to teach English in schools.

For urban parents, the option should not be the private and international schools. Haven’t our children been divided by the different schools they go to already? The last thing we want to do is to create a class system where the better-off go to private schools while the less privileged have to settle for national schools.

Chua: Make pass in SPM English compulsory; Malaysians should be multi-lingual by being well-versed in Bahasa, English and Mandarin

By KAREN CHAPMAN, TAN EE LOO, FLORENCE A. SAMY, CHRISTINA CHIN, HAMDAN RAJA ABDULLAH, DESIREE TRESA GASPER and REGINA LEE

PETALING JAYA: While the MCA welcomes the decision made on the Teaching and Learning of Science and Mathematics in English (PPSMI) policy, it is now calling for the language to be made a compulsory pass subject for SPM.

“We should work towards making English a compulsory pass subject in the SPM examination and also make English Literature a compulsory subject,” said party president Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek.

On the policy, he said Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin had paved the way for clear guidelines on the matter and put an end to any confusion.

In a statement yesterday, Dr Chua said the Government had listened to the voices of the rakyat in coming up with a win-win situation for all.

It was also the party’s fervent hope for the Education Ministry to emphasise the usage of English to equip Malaysians with the universal language to keep up with the rest of the world, he added.

“The MCA would like to re-affirm its stand that all Malaysians should be multi-lingual by being well-versed in Bahasa Malaysia, English and Mandarin to ensure we are more competitive in the globalised world,” said Dr Chua.

In Friday’s announcement, Muh­yiddin – also Education Minister – said the current batch of Year Two to Form Four students would continue under the policy until they complete their secondary education.

Year One pupils this year are already learning the two subjects in Bahasa Malaysia.

Speaking to reporters after attending the SJK (C) Mun Yee fundraising dinner here last night, Dr Chua hit out at the Opposition, saying it should make up their mind on the PPSMI policy and not make “flip-flop” statements.

Responding to a suggestion by PKR’s Selayang MP William Leong that there should be English- medium schools in the country, Dr Chua said DAP and PKR had previously expressed their support towards using Bahasa Malaysia to teach the two subjects.

“In Pakatan Rakyat, they have different stands. Now that the Govern­ment has allowed English to be continued to be used until 2020, they again switch.

“The rakyat has the right to know what is PKR’s policy and stand,” he said, adding that DAP’s stand was also inconsistent.

MIC president Datuk G. Palanivel said the PPSMI decision was a step in the right direction for the future of affected students.  

Taking a page from history

by Dr Kua Kia Soong www.thesundaily.com.my

IN THE raging controversy over the continuance of the PPSMI option, there seem to be at least two main arguments put forward for not allowing it – that it is too troublesome to have two options in the same school, and that English is not the mother tongue of Malaysians.

I believe that choice and flexibility must be a fundamental principle in education policy and that we should take a historical perspective of the development of our present situation.

Mother tongue as a right and facility

First, we should be thankful that the right to mother tongue education and the fact that every child learns best in the mother tongue is a principle that has been established in Unesco and is now widely accepted in our country.

Mother tongue education in Malay, Chinese and Tamil in Malaysia has seen staggered progress. Chinese-language schools have existed in this country for more than 200 years, the first set up in 1819!

Tamil schools have also had a long history and developed mainly through community support during the colonial period. Thus, at Independence there were already 1,350 Chinese primary schools and 78 Chinese secondary schools, while Tamil primary schools numbered more than 800 in 1957.

Malay vernacular schools were built under colonial rule, but they were certainly insufficient. Then, Lim Lian Geok, the “Soul of the Malaysian Chinese”, never failed to encourage the Malay community to call for development of Malay mother-tongue education, including to secondary level. That was why Utusan Melayu would ask Lim to write a column in the newspaper during Hari Raya Aidilfitri.

English-language schools were of course the preferred system of the colonial power and the elite and middle class were enrolled in them, although theoretically they were open to all. Certainly there were also children from poorer classes in the English-medium government schools I studied at in the 50s and 60s.

As a result of this history, English language can now be considered the mother tongue of these middle-class Malaysians, where English is the “family language” with which children communicate with their parents. We should appreciate that colonial societies like ours (including India, Jamaica, Nigeria, Kenya and other British colonies) have this peculiarity, acknowledge and respect this reality, and move on.

Right up to the establishment of the 1961 Education Act, the school leaving certificate for Chinese-language secondary schools was a government administered examination. Our education system managed well and you did not hear grumbles about how “troublesome” it was to have that provision. We inherited that system from our specific history and it served the purpose of providing mother-tongue education.

The 1961 Act did away with Chinese-language secondary schools, and they were then forced to become “independent”, which meant they had to be supported by the community. After that, the government provided only teachers and some financial support for Chinese-language primary schools.

Is it “troublesome” to ask for the reinstatement of Chinese-language secondary schools in the national system? Ever since 1975, the Chinese community has administered the Unified Examination Certificate of the 60 independent Chinese secondary schools which have a total enrolment of some 60,000 students. Tuition fees are a burden to the many parents who choose this educational route for their children and the Chinese have subsidised these schools since 1961. It is like paying double taxation!

National language policy

The former “Government English Schools” had to convert to teaching in Bahasa Malaysia (BM) when the national language policy was implemented after 1969. Any protests were muted in the aftermath of “May 13” and under the assertive Malay-centric ideology of the new ruling class.

And so this system of BM as the medium of instruction has been implemented with no leeway for dissent for at least three decades. Then nine years ago, Dr Mahathir decided to implement the PPSMI, or the teaching of Maths and Science in English.

PPSMI has provided the precedent for this breach in the national language policy. The justification was that it was the only way to master the international language, English. If we bear in mind all the arguments used by the Mahathir administration to justify PPSMI, we really cannot fault the parents organisation PAGE for asking for the choice of keeping PPSMI, using the same arguments. Sorry, the government cannot have its cake and eat it!

Choice of PPSMI “troublesome”?

Some opponents of PAGE’s demand have said that having two media for teaching Maths and Science in the same school is too “troublesome” and unreasonable to impose on the government. I beg to differ.

Education is about having a choice. I remember when my eldest brother was in secondary school in the 60s and was focused about choosing Arts subjects even though he was in the top class made up of mainly Science students. He stood his ground against the school administration. My parents did not even come into the picture. Then, my second brother refused to study Additional Maths even though he was in the top Science class because he was focused on doing Medicine later. Again, he was adamant about his choice and the school had to give in. I made the same choice and did not choose Add. Maths even though the school wanted uniformity.

The principle we were fighting for was choice and flexibility. At the time, we simply could not see why it should be “troublesome” to have that choice.

If it is troublesome to have the choice of Maths and Science in English, what about the choice of having “Pupils’ own Language” in Chinese or Tamil or Kadazan or Bidayuh, etc?

Although I do not agree with the pedagogical wisdom of this, some students of Independent Chinese Secondary Schools even have the choice of doing the SPM in Malay during their fifth year, the UEC in Chinese and A levels in English in their final year! It is not considered “troublesome” for these schools.

It is not as if Malaysians are asking for something so difficult to implement. Our national education system has had a long history of English-language teaching and we have just had nine fresh years of PPSMI; so teachers and resources are not a problem.

Our education system should be looking at broadening the choices to cope with mother-tongue instruction for our indigenous people; and special education to cope with slow learners, autistic and disabled children. I remember when my wife had to write the answers for a child with muscular problems who was sitting for his O Levels at the British Council. Another sightless friend of ours told us about how computer programmes were being developed to enable people in her situation to follow lectures online.

“Troublesome” seems to be the hardest word in the education vocabulary.

Dr Kua Kia Soong is a director of human rights organisation Suara Rakyat Malaysia (Suaram).

Malaysian hacker jailed in US

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By JOSEPH KAOS Jr  joekaosjr@thestar.com.my

WASHINGTON: A US District judge sentenced a Malaysian to 10 years in prison for hacking into the US Federal Reserve and other banks.

Lin Mun Poo, a Malaysian citizen, had admitted earlier this year to hacking into the US central bank, various private financial institutions and possessing stolen bank card and credit card numbers, officials said.

According to AFP, he also admitted to hacking into a Fed computer server and installing a malicious software code there.

Lin, who is from Ipoh, travelled to the United States in October last year “for the purpose of selling stolen credit card and bank card numbers” but a purchaser was in fact an undercover US agent, according to prosecutors.

When he was arrested, Lin held over 122,000 stolen bank card and credit card numbers.

The US Justice Department said Lin's “cybercrime activities also extended to the national security sector”, including hacking into the computer system of a Pentagon contractor that provides systems management services for military transport and other military operations.



“Today's sentence sends the message to hackers around the world that the United States is no place to conduct their business,” US Attorney Loretta Lynch said in a statement on Friday.

Dhillon Andrew Kannabhiran, founder and chief executive officer of hackers community Hack in The Box, said the stiff 10-year sentence was meant to deter hackers from hacking into government networks.

“Details of the case are not clear to me, but you can argue that 10 years for computer crime is harsh by any standards,” Dhillon told The Star.

“It's definitely a sentence which is meant to send a message.”

Dhillon said the hacker was “asking for trouble”.

“Hacking is a tool. Just like a knife can be used by a chef to prepare a meal or to stab someone. It is your motives that sets you apart. People who use their skills to commit financial fraud are not hackers, but just criminals,” he said.

Lin, according to a fellow hacker, deserved his punishment.

“Most hackers have the skills to breach a computer security system. But once you use your skills for malice, then you have committed a crime,” said a computer security consultant who wished to be identified as Sam.

“If you are caught, you deserve to be punished like any other criminal.”

Sam said most people with hacking expertise, like himself, were hired by companies to “test” their computer security system.

“Most of us use our skills to make a decent, legitimate living.”

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China, a rising Asian giant stirs!

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An Asian giant stirs

BEHIND THE HEADLINES WITH BUNN NAGARA

A forum on working with China’s economy only scratched the surface of all that the re-emerging giant implies.

INFORMED comment on China cannot avoid dwelling on its phenomenal rise: what is evident is also the obvious.

China may still have minimal impact on Africa or Latin America, despite Beijing’s latest global overtures stemming largely from China’s quest for productive resources, energy supplies and markets. But in Central Asia, South Asia, Eurasia, Australasia and North America, it is becoming increasingly difficult to underplay China’s growth, much less ignore it.

In East Asia, China’s rise is impossible to overlook. In this context, the Third World Chinese Economic Forum organised by the Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute (Asli) in Kuala Lumpur during the week was themed “Linking East and West in a Globalised World”.

Where other discussions might underrate the international scope of China’s rise, the forum paid incidental attention to it. So factoids and nuggets of data floated on a sea of information exchange around a rising China.

An Indonesian participant said his country’s lack of infrastructure limited the intake of investment from China, particularly in manufacturing. But he said South-East Asia generally showed it could work with China even in the most sensitive area – finance – so the other sectors should not be so difficult.

A Thai academic offered a “soft launch” of his pet notion of an Asean-China partnership leading the rest of the world in economic recovery and growth. However, no modalities were offered for such a vast and complex project, nor were any likely difficulties cited.

A Singapore-based economist said the region would average 6% growth from next year, helped in part by China’s growth. He expected Malaysia’s GDP per capita to reach US$17,000 (RM52,896) in 10 years (the World Bank cited around US$8,500 or RM26,448 for last year). But another Singapore-based economist under-rated Malaysia’s growth for this year from a projected 5.8% to 4.7% just three days before the forum opened. This economist’s pessimism even found a possible decline to a low of 3.8%, which suggests economists hardly ever agree.

A Singapore delegate said the city state wanted to be the “conduit” for investments between China and the rest of Asia. This presumed an exceedingly close relationship between Singa­pore and China, which is yet to happen; guangxi or mutual comfort levels for steady business deals in China remains important.



Among the original five Asean countries, Malaysia is known to enjoy the highest comfort level with China, contrasting with Singapore and Indonesia. From the Suharto years onwards, Singapore and Indonesia were the last of the five to normalise relations with China, in a move led by Malaysia in 1974.

Yet Singapore has the highest proportion of ethnic Chinese, so it is not a racial issue. Nonetheless, the seeming anomaly continues to perplex analysts and policy advisers everywhere, even in China.

At an earlier conference in Shanghai, it fell on me to try to explain it. I suggested the situation resembled Taiwan’s, and it suddenly clicked: on one level being tied psychologically and strategically to a US military presence in the region, and on another level to sovereign sentiments of an island entity that is a geographical, historical and political offshoot of a mainland on which it still depends.

It was in such a strategic framework that the thrust of this year’s World Chinese Economic Forum implicitly came to be embodied in its final session. The key speaker here was Tun Dr Mahathir, who was credited for doing more to improve Malaysia-China relations than any other Malaysian leader.

He emphasised the promise of vastly growing economic relations with a rising China while rejecting the doomsayers’ fears of any prospective Chinese hegemony.

He said the country’s experience of China over 2,000 years had been a mutually happy and beneficial one, including the times when China was clearly a major world power.

Since China’s role in disputed maritime territory remains visible, Dr Mahathir expressed a preference for peaceful methods of settlement such as negotiations and arbitration. He recounted several cases settled through the World Court, with Malaysia winning the case with Indonesia and then losing it with Singapore.

Inevitably, all disputes need to be settled peacefully, and China and Asean countries seem agreed enough on that. Whatever their differences, it should be evident enough to all that there can be no military solution to political and diplomatic disputes.

An economic forum’s ambit is naturally economic matters, even if that left major political issues under-discussed. These would have to be taken up on other occasions, perhaps by other institutions and participants.

For the rest, there remain numerous areas for fruitful cooperation with China. Among these is renewable energy (RE), where Germany is particularly involved and is already working on with China.

However, some misunderstanding remains across borders. An Australian delegate wanted to know why there was a contradiction between China’s continued use of vast amounts of fossil fuels and its apparent interest in RE.

An explanation of sorts was given, but without touching on the central issue. The fact is that China’s economic growth is so vast and determined, and so dependent on energy consumption, that it cannot afford to choose between different forms of energy.

Growth is more than just economics for China, since it also spells political credibility and social peace. It is anxious that it may continue to need more energy than it can access, so it uses any and every form of energy it can.

As a consequence, it has become the world’s largest producer of solar and wind energy. A Chinese automotive company, BYD, is determined to be the world’s largest producer of electric automobile batteries.

In the process, China is said to be seeking to invest in RE abroad, partly to reap the benefits of new technology for national application. Prospective partners may take a number.

Global recession grows closer as G20 summit fails in disarray, Europe stumbles on through debt fog!

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G20 ends in disarray as Europe stumbles on through debt fog

Greg Keller

The G20 summit ended in disarray without additional outside money to ease Europe's debt crisis and new jitters about Italy clouding a plan to prevent Greece from defaulting.

In Athens, Greece's prime minister survived a confidence vote in parliament early on Saturday morning, calming a revolt in his Socialist party with a pledge to seek an interim government that would secure a vital new European debt deal.

In the end, only vague offers to increase the firepower of the International Monetary Fund - at some later date - were all the eurozone leaders were able to take home Friday after two days of tumultuous talks.

Greece's PM George Papandreou (R) and Finance minister Evangelos Venizelos smile after winning a vote of confidence. Photo: Reuters

With their own finances already stretched from bailing out Greece, Ireland and Portugal - and the United States and other allies wrestling with their own problems - eurozone countries had been looking to the IMF to help line up more financing to prevent the debt crisis from spreading to larger economies like Italy and Spain.

Italy's fate in particular is crucial to the eurozone, because its economy - the third-largest in the currency union - would be too expensive to bail out. The implications for the world economy are stark: The debt crisis that has rocked the 17-nation eurozone threatens to push the world economy into a second recession.

European leaders could point to one potential catastrophe averted: They stared down Greece's prime minister and berated him into scrapping a referendum that threatened their European bailout plan. Greece's politics are in upheaval as a result, but the shaky bailout plan appears back on track - for now.

"We want Europe to work," French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on French TV when the summit was over. "I think today we can have confidence ... but that's not to say our troubles are behind us."

In the end, the Greek question completely derailed Sarkozy's aim of using the summit to show that Europe had sorted out its debt problem once and for all - and possibly convince some of them to pitch in to the rescue effort.

In the space of days, the already shrunken list of goals set out by France to close out its year as head of the G20 was scrapped, replaced by a nearly constant stream of shocking new developments and reversals in Europe's long-running attempt to get control of Greece's debt crisis.

That reality was perhaps best illustrated at the height of the summit on Thursday evening, when hundreds of journalists dropped what they were doing in the basement of Cannes' Palais des Festivals and gathered around television screens to watch a live transmission from the Greek parliament in Athens, where Prime Minister George Papandreou was speaking.

The week of unending drama in Athens horrified its European partners, spooked global markets and overshadowed the summit in Cannes. The threat of a Greek default or exit from the common euro currency has worsened the continent's debt crisis.

When the week started, Europe had finally reached an intricate, ambitious and fragile deal to try to rescue Greece and stop the crisis from spreading any further. The G-20 summit was supposed to solidify and clarify the deal and get the world economy back on the right track.

Then on Monday night, Papandreou shocked his European partners and domestic allies by announcing he would put the plan to a referendum. Markets panicked, as did many of the leaders coming to Cannes.

Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel held a series of frenzied meetings, then summoned Papandreou on Wednesday. If you lose this referendum, you could lose the euro, they told him. And they froze a new (euro) 8 billion ($A10.66 billion) loan that Greece will soon need to pay government salaries.

On Thursday, Papandreou backed down and abandoned the referendum. The U-turn left his 2-year-old government teetering.

Now Europe's leaders may find it is impossible to take back the shocking admission by Sarkozy and Merkel that an exit by Greece from the eurozone was no longer unthinkable.

And even as US President Barack Obama, Chinese President Hu Jintao and other leaders struggled to make sense of the Greek drama's fast-shifting plot, another flashpoint emerged in Italy.

Market confidence in Italy's ability to reduce its public debt and spur growth in its anemic economy has withered over recent weeks as the government weakened. MPs have defected to the opposition and some of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's ministers have openly suggested the government's days may be numbered.

Market fears mounted on Friday in the wake of the confusion about Greece. Italy's benchmark 10-year bond yield jumped 0.32 of a percentage point to 6.43 per cent, indicating a surge in investor worries about the country's ability to repay its debts.

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Global recession grows closer as G20 summit fails

Cameron tells eurozone member states to solve their own problems. Link to this videoA world recession has drawn closer after a fractious G20 summit failed to agree fresh financial help for distressed countries and debt-ridden Italy was forced to agree to the International Monetary Fund monitoring its austerity programme.

Financial markets fell sharply after the two days of talks in Cannes broke up in disarray, amid concerns that Italy will now replace Greece at the centre of Europe's deepening debt crisis.

UK hopes that the Germans would relent and allow the European Central Bank to become the lender of last resort for the euro were also dashed.

On a day of unremitting gloom and yet more market turbulence, the Greek prime minister, George Papandreou, won a late-night confidence vote in his parliament after making a speech in which he promised to start powersharing talks to form a caretaker coalition government. Although he won the vote by 153-145, he is now expected to step down and a national unity government is expected to take over in the coming days.

Papandreou said he would visit the country's president on Saturday to launch power-sharing talks "with the [opposition] parties … for the formation of a government of broad co-operation."

In a sign that the spread of the debt crisis to Italy could break up the single currency, the chancellor, George Osborne, admitted the Treasury was undertaking crisis planning for a eurozone collapse.

The G20 deadlock led David Cameron to issue one of his starkest warnings about the impact on the UK economy, saying: "Every day the eurozone crisis continues and every day it is not resolved is a day that it has a chilling effect on the rest of the world economy, including the British economy.

"I am not going to pretend all the problems in the eurozone have been fixed. They have not. The task for the eurozone is the same as going into this summit. The world can't wait for the eurozone to go through endless questions and changes about this.

"We, like the rest of the world, need the eurozone to sort out its problems. We need more to happen in terms of detail on the European firewall."

Cameron hinted at worse to come, describing this as only "a stage of the global crisis".

There had been hopes that the G20 would agree to increase IMF resources by as much as $250bn to more than $1tn, but disagreements about the wisdom of it, structure, size and contributors to the fund left world leaders forced to pass the issue on to a meeting of G20 finance ministers next February.

The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, had been eager to flourish a figure both to reassure the markets and to top his chairmanship of the G20.

Cameron revealed the friction, saying: "The very worst thing would be to try to cook up a number without being very specific about who is contributing what. If you cannot do that, it is better to say the world stands ready to increase resources to the IMF as necessary."

In the financial markets an early rise in share prices was reversed after it became clear that divisions in the G20 would prevent a deal in Cannes to boost the firepower of the European financial stability facility (EFSF) or the IMF. The yield on 10-year Italian bonds rose from 6.2% to 6.4%, the highest since the euro was founded, raising fears that the country would face problems financing its huge debts.

Obama, under pressure from Congress, was deeply reluctant to contribute to an expansion of IMF funds without clearer signs that the eurozone was sorting out its problems. Admitting that he had been given a crash course in European politics, Obama urged Greek and Italian parliaments to take decisive action to control their deficits and combat what he described as some of the psychological origins of the crisis.

He also urged the euro area to start putting some resources into the EFSF, which Europe hopes to turn into a bailout fund with at least €1tn to deploy.

But the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, said: "There are hardly any countries here which said they were ready to go along with the EFSF."

Berlusconi was summoned to a late-night hotel meeting with Merkel, Sarkozy, the IMF director general, Christine Lagarde, and Obama, where he was told that the IMF was to start monitoring to ensure tough austerity measures are implemented. The measures include changes to the labour market, pension reform and the sell-off of state-owned assets.

Italy has debts of €1.9tn, or 120% of GDP, and if it followed Greece down the path towards a financial bailout, or default, the impact on the European banking system would be vast. Italy faces new tests in further auctions of its debt this month – it has to raise €30.5bn in November and a further €22.5bn in December.

Sarkozy denied that the demands on Berlusconi represented an IMF coup, saying: "We never wanted to change governments, either in Greece or in Italy. That is not our role, that is not our idea of democracy, but it's clear that there are rules in Europe and if you exonerate yourself from these rules you exclude yourself from Europe."

Berlusconi, facing defections from his own party, insisted he had invited the IMF to offer advice. Berlusconi said on Friday he had rejected an offer of funds from the IMF – "I don't think Italy needs that" – and said his country was more solid than France or the UK.

British officials privately admit that potential economic collapse in Italy is now the single biggest concern gripping world leaders. One said: "We cannot have the Italians meeting in crisis every three days. We need some action."

The UK government will now focus on urging its European partners to make progress, and will continue to support extra cash for the IMF. Cameron said he would not need UK parliamentary approval for this as the Commons has already agreed to an increase that would cover the proposed UK additional contribution.

The EFSF has €440bn ($608bn) available to lend, of which roughly half is expected to be consumed by bailouts of Ireland, Portugal and Greece. Italy has nearly €2tn in debt outstanding.

The European Central Bank has purchased Italian debt since August, but will not carry on doing so indefinitely. The need to bolster the EFSF has led the EU to pursue countries outside the euro zone with surplus cash, such as China. 

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