'Latin Spring' still on course after Hugo Chavez' death from caner

The post-Chavez era is unlikely to be very different, mainly because the West is still unprepared to change.

 A supporter lines up to pay her last respects to late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, outside the Military Academy in Caracas on March 8, 2013. Venezuela gave Hugo Chavez a lavish farewell on Friday at a state funeral that brought some of the world's most notorious strongmen to... 

THE expected death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez from cancer has produced predictable reactions all-round. The left mourned a fallen hero who had “made” a revolution, the right basked in quiet hopefulness for change, and the rest offered condolences to the extent their politics afforded.

Yet the leader who broke the mould of Venezuelan politics seemed to deserve less conventional responses to his 14 years of reshaping the country.

In an otherwise balanced airing, the BBC featured pundits variously calling Chavez “a communist” and “anti-American”, blithely repeating the familiar line about his links with Iranian and Russian counterparts being merely superficial.

CNN took a business angle in accusing Chavez of under-investing in Venezuela’s oil sector. And so on. Critics elsewhere alleged that he was just another Latin American strongman who promoted the cult of the individual and undermined democratic institutions.

Evidently, Chavez did not dampen public enthusiasm for his leadership. But his failure in upholding democratic institutions applies particularly only within the narrow context of formal democratic procedure.

His biggest contribution to Venezuela is to awaken the people to their democratic birthrights like adequate housing, healthcare and education.

This change has been so profound as to remake national politics, so that even opposition politicians now have to promise the same thing, only more. In a primal democratic institution and process, the masses would vote with their feet against any candidate who dared to offer the people less.

This transformation is further based on overturning decades of unquestioned allegiance to the Washington Consensus of “open markets”, “privatisation” and “deregulation”. A Latin America that has changed thus is not about to change back too soon.

True enough, Chavez had been a Latin American strongman. But that quality was more cultural than political, as he adopted the classically paternalistic, macho style of the Latin caudillo.

The difference, again, is that while previous Latin American caudillos tended to be pro-US right-wing dictators, Chavez was not that. So he is regarded differently or not at all.

There is no doubt that Chavez and his policies were popular and not just populist. One of the biggest problems for his opponents has been his transformation of the state to serve public, rather than privileged private, interests.

Critics have also tended to fundamentally misread history, believing that Chavez had reinvented Venezuela. The reality is that Chavez himself had been a product of the times in the region, rather than the other way round.

The same regional moment had also produced similarly progressive leaders in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay. This so-called “turn to the left” in the region may instead be named the “Latin Spring”.

Since the turn of the century, the movement swept a region like the “Arab Spring” later did, but with key differences. The Latin Spring involved more countries, far more people, and was established democratically rather than through bloodshed and foreign military intervention.

But despite its strengths, it was not regarded positively by the Western establishment and mainstream media, because another key difference was that it went against Western-friendly despots rather than Western-averse ones.

And Chavez was placed at the head of the movement because Venezuela was seen to have started it all. From the lack of a positive reception came the negative perceptions.

But the fact is that neither Chavez nor any other individual, however gifted, could have masterminded or stage-managed a historic regional movement even if he wanted to.

The various Latin American countries are all sovereign nation states dominated by no single individual. There is also no single power “guiding” them other than the US that had done so before.

The new era is one of each country taking charge of its own affairs for itself, based on the people taking charge of the state. The time of death squads, Iran-Contras and transnational corporations lording it over the peasants is past.

It happened before, but in piecemeal fashion: the fall of Nicaragua’s Somoza, Bolivia’s Suarez and Chile’s Pinochet. It was never a broad movement like today’s.

The scale and reach of the present movement is much larger than any single country’s experience. It is also set to outlive individuals like Chavez.

Failing to recognise this will mean failing to deal adequately with these countries, at a time in history when they are also becoming more important. It would also allow Cold War ideology to claim more unwitting victims.

Chavez’s opponents and critics have long linked him with Cuba’s Fidel Castro, an apparent error that is true and justified but only unintentionally. Like Castro, he was essentially a Third World nationalist pushed into making less than ideal linkages around the globe by default.

But today’s newly awakened Latin America cannot be pushed into the fold of a non-existent Soviet Union, nor of a Russia or China too preoccupied with its own internal challenges and anxious only for foreign markets or sources of raw materials.

Instead, they are more likely to be pushed more closely to one another, finding common cause among themselves and in relation to Washington and its Consensus”. The new Latin America will remain different from before, long after Chavez ‘s presidency despite its significant national contribution to it.

Behind The Headlines by BUNN NAGARA

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CIA Assasinating South American Head of States with Cancer Virus , Chavez the latest Victim a US Plot?

http://youtu.be/jFqcMG6XjgQ

Stop paying quit rent to Sultan of Sulu, it’s time to close the chapter

Safeguarding our territory: Malaysian troops moving into Tanduo village during an operation to flush out the armed intruders. — (Handout photo by Defence Ministry)

 

A major shift in Malaysia's position on the Philippine claim to Sabah is needed. 
 
THE Philippines Government officially announced their claim to North Borneo (now Sabah) on June 22, 1962. Despite numerous attempts to settle the issue, it still festers on, exemplified by the latest tragic events unfolding on the east coast of Sabah.

The Philippine claim is based on two documents dated Jan 22, 1878. By the first document, Sultan Muhammad Jamaluladzam granted (pajak) all his territorial possessions in Borneo (tanah besar Pulau Berunai) to Gustavus Baron de Overbeck and Alfred Dent Esquire as representatives of a British Company for a yearly payment/ quit rent (hasil pajakan) of five thousand dollars (Spanish dollars).

By the second document, the said Sultan appointed Overbeck as “Dato' Bendahara and Rajah of Sandakan” with the fullest powers of a “supreme ruler” (penghulu pemerintah atas kerajaan yang tersebut itu).

Descendants of Sultan Muhammad Jamaluladzam (the number cannot be ascertained, but is large), represented by the Kiram Corporation and the Philippine Government, have always claimed that this 1878 grant was a lease (pajakan) and not a cession as claimed by Malaysia. The continuous annual payment of the quit rent or cession monies of five thousand dollars (now RM5,300) to these descendants is cited as further proof of this contention. Based on these grounds, they claim, Sabah belongs to the Philippines/ the Sultan of Sulu's descendants.

Before discussing how Malaysia has been responding to this assertion and how it should alter its position drastically, a little bit of historical narrative is in order.

Without going too far back in time, it is suffice to say historical documents confirm that both the Sultanate of Brunei and the Sultanate of Sulu exercised political control over parts of present-day Sabah (there was no State or Negeri Sabah at that time) in the late 19th century. Brunei had defacto jurisdiction on the west coast from Kimanis to Pandasan, while Sulu ruled the east coast from Marudu to the Sibuku River. The interior was largely independent under local indigenous suku chiefs.

Both Sultanates, however, claimed dejure jurisdiction from the Pandasan on the west coast to the Sibuku River on the east. Both Sultanates were also in a state of decline. Brunei was suffering from internal decay while large parts of its territories were being swallowed up by the new state of Sarawak under the Brookes.

In the Philippine region, the Spanish authorities in Manila had been trying to subjugate the independent and powerful kingdom of Sulu for three centuries without success. In 1871, the Spaniards launched another exerted campaign to conquer the stubborn kingdom.

It was in this kind of environment that a number of European and American speculators became interested in obtaining territorial concessions from the two weak Sultanates for speculative purposes. Among them were Lee Moses and Joseph Torrey of America; and Baron von Overbeck and Alfred Dent who had formed a company called the Overbeck-Dent Association on March 27, 1877 in London for the purpose of obtaining land concessions in Sabah and selling them for a profit.

Overbeck and Dent acquired Brunei's jurisdiction over its Sabah possessions in five documents dated Dec 29, 1877 from the Sultan of Brunei and his ministers. After this, Overbeck sailed to Jolo where he also obtained the rights of the Sultan of Sulu in Sabah through two agreements concluded on Jan 22, 1878.

Why was Sultan Muhammad Jamaluladzan prepared to lease/ grant/ pajak his territories in Sabah to Overbeck and Dent? Sulu was on the brink of capitulating to the Spaniards and as such Sultan Muhammad was hopeful of obtaining some assistance from the Overbeck-Dent Association and possibly even from Britain. Placed in such dire straits, he was therefore not adverse to giving Overbeck and Dent territorial concessions in Sabah with some hope of salvation.

In the event, no such aid came either from the Overbeck-Dent Association or the British Government. Six months after the Overbeck-Dent grants were concluded, Sulu was conquered by the Spanish authorities on July 2 1878. With the fall of Sulu, the said Sultanate ceased to be an independent entity as it was incorporated as part of the Spanish colonial administration of the Philippines.

In 1898, Spain lost the Philippines to the United States by the Peace of Paris (Dec 10, 1898), which ended the Spanish-American War. The US ruled the Philippines till 1946 when independence was granted.

The sultanate ended when Sultan Jamalul Kiram II signed the Carpenter Agreement on March 22, 1915, in which he ceded all political power to the United States.

 

Carpenter, Governor of the Department of Mindanao and Sulu, Philippine Islands,  from 1913-1920, with the Sultan of Sulu, Jamalul Kiram II.

Meanwhile, in 1936, the US colonial administration of the Philippines abolished the Sulu Sultanate upon the death of Sultan Jamalul Kiram II (1894-1936) in the same year in an attempt to create a unitary State of the Philippines. Jamalul Kiram III is a self- appointed “Sultan” with a dubious legal status.

Now, coming back to the question of Malaysia's ongoing treatment of the claim, and why and how it should completely alter this position. Since the official announcement of the claim by the Philippine Government on June 22, 1962, Malaysia has been pursuing an ambivalent policy. On the one hand, it has persistently rejected the Philippines claim, but on the other it has compromised Malaysia's sovereignty by agreeing to settle the “dispute” by peaceful means (such as the Manila Agreement, Aug 3, 1963) and a number of other mutual agreements between the two countries.

Most damaging of all is Malaysia's willingness to honour the clause in the 1878 Sulu grant pertaining to the payment of the annual quit rent or cession monies as Malaysia says, of RM5,300, to the descendants of the former Sulu Sultanate. To this day, Malaysia is still paying this quit rent, lending credence to the claimants' argument that the 1878 grant was a lease and not a cession and therefore it still belongs to them.

If Malaysia continues to follow this policy, there will be no end to this problem except to buy out the rights of the descendents of the Sultan of Sulu. But this course is fraught with danger as it will lead to further legal complications with the Philippines and even endless litigation with the descendants.

My proposal is that Malaysia should go by the laws of “effectivities”, as in the case of the International Court of Justice's (ICJ) judgement pertaining to the issue of sovereignty over the Sipadan and Ligitan islands, and the law of acts of a'titre de souverain as in the case of Pulau Batu Puteh. No title, however strong, is valid once the original owner fails to exercise acts consistent with the position of a'titre de souverain. The opposite is true, that is, the holder of the lease may not have original title but he ultimately gains permanent possession of the lease by virtue of continuous state “effectivities”.

In this case, the Sultan of Sulu and its successors including the Philippine government have failed to conduct any acts of a'titre de souverain since 1882, and so they have legally lost their title.

On the other hand, the successors of the Overbeck-Dent Association, that is the British North Borneo Company (1882-1946); the British Colonial Administration (1946-1963); and Malaysia, (from 1963) have been exercising continuous acts of a'titre de souverain for a period of 131 years.

Since we have all this evidence on our side, Malaysia should now take a new stand by totally rejecting the validity of the 1878 grants on the grounds of “effectivitie” and a'titre de souverain. It should also immediately stop paying the so-called annual quit rent or cession monies. This payment has always brought huge embarrassment to Malaysia and has in fact compromised its sovereignty.

We should also never agree to go to the International Court of Justice not because our case is weak (it is very strong), but because we don't want to trade the fate of sovereign territories and people through the judgment of any court, even the ICJ.

There's one more point that should be pondered upon. No country or state or nation which has obtained independence has ever paid ownership monies to its former masters. The 13 Colonies of America did not do so, India did not do so, the Federation of Malaya did not do so.

Sabah became an independent state on Aug 31, 1963 and decided to form the Federation of Malaysia with three other partners on Sept 16, 1963. It is strange indeed, if not preposterous, that a sovereign state is paying ownership or cession monies to certain people based on a colonial, pre-independence treaty that is 131 years old!

Comment by EMERITUS PROF DR D.S RANJIT SINGH

Emeritus Prof D. S. Ranjit Singh is Visiting Professor at the College of Law, Government and International Studies, Universiti Utara Malaysia (ranjit@uum.edu.my). 

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CIA Assasinating South American Head of States with Cancer Virus , Chavez the latest Victim a US Plot?

  
JNN 8 Mar 2013 Caracas : The Venezuelan president himself, before he died Wednesday, wondered aloud whether the US government – or the banksters who own it – gave him, and its other leading Latin American enemies, cancer.





“How did it happen that six leaders of Latin American countries which had criticized US policies and tried to create an influential alliance in order to be independent and sovereign states, fell ill simultaneously with the same disease?”

A little over a year ago, Chavez went on Venezuelan national radio and said: “I don’t know but… it is very odd that we have seen Lugo affected by cancer, Dilma when she was a candidate, me, going into an election year, not long ago Lula and now Cristina… It is very hard to explain, even with the law of probabilities, what has been happening to some leaders in Latin America. It’s at the very least strange, very strange.”

Strange indeed… so strange that if you think Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, Paraguayan Fernando Lugo, and former Brazilian leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – Latin America’s top anti-US empire leaders – all just happened to contract cancer around the same time by sheer chance, you must be some kind of crazy coincidence theorist.

Am I 100% certain that the CIA killed Hugo Chavez? Absolutely not.

It could have been non-governmental assassins working for the bankers.

But any way you slice it, the masters of the US empire are undoubtedly responsible for giving Chavez and other Latin American leaders cancer. How do we know that? Just examine the Empire’s track record.
Fidel Castro’s bodyguard, Fabian Escalante, estimates that the CIA attempted to kill the Cuban president an astonishing 638 times. The CIA’s methods included exploding cigars, biological warfare agents painted on Castro’s diving suit, deadly pills, toxic bacteria in coffee, an exploding speaker’s podium, snipers, poison-wielding female friends, and explosive underwater sea shells.

The CIA’s assassination attempts against Castro were like a Tom and Jerry cartoon, with the CIA as the murderously inept cat, and the Cuban president as a clever and very lucky mouse. Some might even argue that Castro’s survival, in the face of 638 assassination attempts by the world’s greatest power, is evidence that El Presidente’s communist atheism was incorrect, and that God, or at least a guardian angel, must have been watching over “Infidel Castro” all along.

Theology aside, the CIA’s endless attempts on Castro’s life provide ample evidence that US authorities will stop at nothing in their efforts to murder their Latin American enemies.

John Perkins, in his bestselling book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, supplies more evidence that the bankers that own the US government routinely murder heads of state, using private assassins as well as CIA killers.

Perkins, during his career as an “economic hit man,” gained first-hand knowledge about how the big international bankers maintain their empire in Latin America and elsewhere. Perkins’ job was to visit leaders of foreign countries and convince them to accept loans that could never be paid back. Why? The bankers want to force these nations into debt slavery. When the country goes bankrupt, the bankers seize the nation’s natural resources and establish complete control over its government and economy.

Perkins would meet with a targeted nation’s leader and say: “I have a fist-full of hundred dollar bills in one hand, and a bullet in the other. Which do you want?” If the leader accepted the loans, thereby enslaving his country, he got the payoff. If he angrily chased Perkins out of his office, the bankers would call in the “asteroids” to assassinate the uncooperative head of state.

The “asteroids” are the world’s most expensive and accomplished professional killers. They work on contract – sometimes to the CIA, sometimes to the bankers, and sometimes to wealthy private individuals. And though their specialty is causing plane crashes, they are capable of killing people, including heads of state, in any number of ways.

This isn’t just speculation. John Perkins actually knows some of these CIA-linked professional killers personally. And he has testified about their murders of Latin American leaders.Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is dedicated to Perkins’ murdered friends Gen. Torrijos of Panama and President Jaime Roldos of Ecuador. Both were killed by CIA-linked “asteroids” in engineered plane crashes.

Do CIA-linked killers sometimes induce cancer in their victims? Apparently they do. One notable victim: Jack Ruby (née Jack Rubenstein), a mobster who was himself a professional killer, and whose last hit was the choreographed murder of JFK-assassination patsy Lee Harvey Oswald in the basement of the Dallas Police Department. Ruby begged to be taken to Washington to tell the real story of the JFK murder, but instead died in prison, of a sudden and mysterious cancer, before he could reveal what he knew.

Have the CIA-bankster “asteroids” ever tried to kill Latin American leaders with cancer? The answer is an unequivocal “yes.”

Edward Haslam’s book Dr. Mary’s Monkey proves what JFK assassination prosecutor Jim Garrison had earlier alleged: Child-molesting CIA agent David Ferrie, one of President Kennedy’s killers, had experimented extensively with cancer-causing viruses for the CIA in his huge home laboratory. The purpose: To give Fidel Castro and other Latin American leaders cancer. (Ferrie himself was killed by the CIA shortly before he was scheduled to testify in court about his role in the JFK assassination.)

To summarize: We know that the bankers who own the US government routinely try to kill any Latin American leader who refuses to be their puppet. We know that they have mounted thousands of assassination attempts against Latin American leaders, including more than 600 against Castro alone. We know that they have been experimenting with cancer viruses, and killing people with cancer, since the 1960s.

So if you think Hugo Chavez died a natural death, I am afraid that you are terminally naïve.

Venezuelan Vice President Nicolas Maduro has announced the expulsion of two US embassy officials for allegedly spying on the country’s military, accusing Washington of having infected late President Hugo Chavez with the cancer virus.

Maduro charged the US administration in a televised speech on Tuesday, after holding an emergency meeting with high military command and civilian leaders and hours before the announcement of President Chavez’s death.

Caracas accused the US embassy’s Air Force attache, Colonel David Delmonaco, and assistant air attache, Major Devlin Kostal, of trying to stir up a military plot against the Venezuelan government.

Washington confirmed that the two officials were employed at the embassy, saying Delmonaco was en route back to the US, and Kostal was in America at the time.

Maduro also said that, “We have no doubt” that the President’s cancer, first diagnosed in 2011, was induced by “the historical enemies of our homeland,” a thinly-veiled reference to the US.

He compared the situation to the death of the late leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, Yasser Arafat, who Maduro claimed was “inoculated with an illness.”

US State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said in a statement that Washington “definitely rejects” the assertion that the US was involved in Chavez’s illness.

On Tuesday, the 58-year-old Venezuelan leader died after a two-year battle with cancer.

Back in 2011, Chavez had accused the US of developing a technology for infecting Latin American leaders with cancer.

Argentinean President Cristina Kirchner Fernandez, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and former Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo have all received treatment for cancer disease.

“Wouldn’t it be weird if they [the US] had developed a technology for inducing cancer and nobody knows up until now?” Chavez had said at the time.

Russian Communist Party head Gennady Zyuganov today demanded an international investigation into the death of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, claiming it was “far from a coincidence” that six leaders of Latin-American countries who had criticized the U.S. simultaneously fell ill with cancer.

“How did it happen that six leaders of Latin American countries which had criticized US policies and tried to create an influential alliance in order to be independent and sovereign states, fell ill simultaneously with the same disease?” Zyuganov told Russian state television, urging an investigation under “international control” into Chavez’s death.

Zyuganov is accurate so far as his claim that six Latin-American leaders were diagnosed with cancer within a relatively close period of time, most notably Argentina’s President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in December 2012, although later analysis proved that she had never actually suffered from the illness.

Current Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, Paraguay’s Fernando Lugo, and the former Brazilian leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, have all been hit with cancer in the last few years. In 2006 it was also reported that retired Cuban leader Fidel Castro was also diagnosed with cancer.

- Jafria Community's Voice

 “Chavez Death Could Be A US Plot”

The death of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez from cancer may have been part of a plot by the United States to infect its enemies in Latin America with the disease, the leader of Russia’s Communist party, Gennady Zyuganov, speculated on Wednesday.

“How did it happen that six leaders of Latin American countries which had criticized US policies and tried to create an influential alliance in order to be independent and sovereign states, fell ill simultaneously with the same disease?” Zyuganov said in comments carried by Russian state television.

“In my view, this was far from a coincidence,” said Zyuganov, the head of Russia’s second-largest political party. He urged an investigation under “international control” into Chavez’s death.

Zyuganov’s claim echoed accusations by Venezuelan Vice President Nicolas Maduro, who alleged last week that Chavez had fallen victim to an “imperialist” plot.

“The old enemies of our fatherland looked for a way to harm his health,” Maduro said,



Chavez, who died on Tuesday at the age of 58 after an almost two-year battle with cancer, had himself speculated that the United States may have developed methods to infect its enemies with the disease.

“Would it be so strange that they’ve invented the technology to spread cancer and we won’t know about it for 50 years?” Chavez – who once famously called former US President George W. Bush “the devil” – said in late 2011, after he had been diagnosed with the disease.

He was speaking a day after Argentina’s President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was diagnosed with thyroid cancer.

“Fidel [Castro] always told me, ‘Chávez take care. These people have developed technology. You are very careless. Take care what you eat, what they give you to eat … a little needle and they inject you with I don’t know what,’ he said in late 2011 after he had been diagnosed with cancer,” Chavez added.

Castro was himself the target of numerous US assassination plots, according to declassified documents published by the CIA in 2007.

Among the other leftwing Latin America leaders diagnosed with cancer are Brazil’s current president, Dilma Rousseff, Paraguay’s Fernando Lugo, and the former Brazilian leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

By Stephen Gowans Global Research

China all out to rejuvenate the nation

A great nation in the course of development and 5,000 years of its civilisation, the Chinese nation has made an indelible contribution to human civilisation and progress



WHEN Xi Jinping and his new Chinese Communist Party (CCP) top brass line-up were introduced to the media last November, the party general-secretary set the tone for a majestic dream that the whole nation will pursue in the next decade.

The dream is to unify China and Taiwan. The grand mission is bring China back to its glorious past during the ancient times.

Its goal is to become a moderately prosperous society by 2020. All in all, this is what the Chinese call the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

“Our nation is a great nation. In the course of development and 5,000 years of its civilisation, the Chinese nation has made an indelible contribution to human civilisation and progress,” Xi said.

“Since then, in order to achieve the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, numerous people with lofty ideals had launched protests but once again they failed to do so. After the founding of the CCP, we got the people united and transformed a poor and backward China into a prosperous new China. We can now see the unprecedented bright prospect of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”

Xi then promised to work hard and lead the people to their revival.

In his final address at Tuesday’s meeting of the National People’s Congress as Chinese Premier after 10 years of service, the outgoing Wen Jiabao again stressed the party’s resolve in seeing the reunification of China one day.

“We should adhere to the central government’s major policies on Tai­­­­wan, fully implement the important ideas of peaceful development and deepen the cross-strait relations through politics, economy and culture.

“We should make concerted effort to complete the reunification process of our motherland,” he said.

According to Zhang Ping, who is the chairman of the National Deve­­­lopment and Reform Commission, which approves major projects and strategies policies to maintain the country’s economic vitality, a strong and sound economy will continue to be one of the main forces to rejuvenate the nation.

He said in the past five years, China experienced a fast yet stable economic growth of 9.3% on average and its GDP grew from over 30 trillion yuan (RM14.98tril) in 2008 to 50 trillion yuan (RM24.98tril) last year.

The rural residents’ income increased by 9.9% while that of urbanites rose 8.8%. Compared with other developed or developing nations, such a growth rate was considered one of the fastest, he added.

“I would not want to say that ‘only the landscape over here is good’ but we have indeed achieved great results. While maintaining a stable yet progressive growth, our economic structure especially domestic demand has further improved.

“Boosting domestic demand is the most effective measure that we had taken to win the war against the global financial crisis and respond to external crisis,” he said at a press conference on Wednesday.

Zhang said, in a way, the measure had offset the negative growth of external demand for Chinese goods amid the crisis and encouraged a wave of innovativeness among companies.

Moving forward, he said China would need to continue with its social and economic reform especially in the financial sector, fiscal and taxation mechanism, income distribution system and revamp of state-owned enterprises.

He attributed the meteoric rise of China becoming a productive, relatively prosperous and internationally competitive nation throughout the last 30 years to its unwavering path on reforms.

“The main driving force for China’s future development will still depend on reform. By 2020, our goal is not only to build a moderately prosperous society but also deepen economic reform.

“We will also have to further improve our economic structure based on socialist capital market and ensure all our economic and social systems become more mature,” he said.

He said China was facing problems of overcapacity especially in the iron and steel, aluminium, cement, glass, coke, photovoltaic and wind energy equipment industries, in the course of its transformation into one of the world’s biggest manufacturing-based nations.

He said the government would have to strike a balance and maintain only companies which were energy efficient and high technology centric.

“We will make sure the people earn enough money and have money to spend and this will boost domestic consumption which is key to our economic development.

“At last year’s 18th CCP National Congress, the leadership and party delegates further triggered the enthusiasm of the Chinese people to achieve the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and this provides us with great strength to leap forward.”

Made in China By CHOW HOW BAN

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Learning from a truly great entrepreneur

Intellectual property ownership

The Government is spending a huge sum of money on research and development, especially in the areas of pure sciences, engineering, medical sciences and social sciences, including education, management, and sociology field.

The search for knowledge is the ever evolving nature of human beings, especially academicians whose livelihood depends on the depth, variety and impactful research they are embarking on.

Government-sponsored research grants always encourage developing human capital by involving potential postgraduate students in the research together with their academic supervisors who have sound track record of research and publications in their research domain.

Usually, the academic supervisors with their vast experience, exposure and reading in the areas of their interest, will co-develop the research framework with their postgraduate candidates in the initial stage of the research.

The postgraduate candidates may further fine tune the research framework and perform further rigorous testing before it is ready for data collection.

Once the data collection is completed and fruitful findings are established, the research framework becomes the intellectual property of the designers and the authors once it is published in a peer reviewed and high impact journal.

The issue of ownership of the intellectual property arises when it comes to primary authorship and supporting authorship if it is submitted for a journal publication or chapters in a book or even for a book publication.

There are many schools of thought to explain this, but, one thing to be remembered, treasured and cherished by those involved in the research is the synergised teamwork and wonderful relationship between the postgraduate candidate and the mentor that had created such a valuable intellectual property.

Can we allow such a noble relationship to be smeared or broken by raising ownership issues of the intellectual property and sequencing the authorship for the journals and books? Does the authorship sequence have any value if the relationship is broken or belittled?

Since there is no single doctrine to dictate who should be the primary author and the secondary author or third author, as all these involve emotions and ego. The act of producing a film based on a storybook is a good analogy.

When producing a film based on a good story, the whole team – director, photographer, stuntman, etc, put in effort to make the movie a success.

For example, the film Harry Potter, directed by David Heyman originated from a book written by J.K. Rowling.

In academic research, the postgraduate candidate should own the thesis which is the storybook in the case of a film.

When it is published in a journal, the authorship and its sequence of authorships should be based on the roles such as who had directed the development of the whole paper that should be given the primary authorship.

Then comes the respective individuals who created each component to make a manuscript for the journal publication.

If the academic supervisor crafted the whole manuscript and had received contributions from the postgraduate candidate and other researchers to satisfy the readership of a journal, then the academic supervisor can be the main author.

The origin of the research thesis is still owned by the postgraduate candidate, and he or she can take turns to craft another manuscript after learning the ropes of writing to a journal which needs mindful amendments a few times before it gets published.

The important matter here is all will be given due recognition based on the efforts to create a wider readership.

Therefore, the intellectual property ownership and authorship sequence issue should not overcrowd or destroy the research spirit that has primary importance in the development of human capital in the country.
Academicians have been working very hard towards that goal since the establishment of the universities.

DR SHANKAR CHELLIAH Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang

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The Sultan of Sulu reclaims eastern Sabah, MNLF among invaders

 

Carpenter, Governor of the Department of Mindanao and Sulu, Philippine Islands,  from 1913-1920, with the Sultan of Sulu, Jamalul Kiram II.

 
THE Sultanate of Sulu was a traditional Islamic monarchy of the Tausug people that covered the Philippine provinces of Basilan, Palawan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) and the eastern part of Sabah.

It was founded in 1457 by religious scholar and explorer Sharif Abu Bakar, who assumed the title Sultan Shariful Hashim after his marriage to Paramisuli, a local princess.

He promulgated the first Sulu Code of Laws (Diwan) that were based on the Quran, and introduced an Islamic political institution and the consolidation of Islam as a state religion.

In 1675, the throne of what is now Brunei was disputed and the Sultan of Sulu was asked to settle the conflict, after which he was rewarded with North Borneo (now eastern Sabah).

In 1878, the Sulu Sultan leased North Borneo to the Europeans. The agreement stated that the lease was of their own free will and was valid until the end of time.

The sultanate received an annual cession payment that was equivalent to 5,000 Malayan dollars, which was increased to 5,300 Malayan dollars in 1903.

North Borneo was a British protectorate from the late 19th century until it became a crown colony.

It gained a brief period of independence before becoming part of Malaysia in 1963. From then, Malaysia paid RM5,300 as cession payment each year to the sultanate.

The former Sultan’s descendants did not retake the territory, instead, agreeing to accept the cession payment under the previous arra­ngement. This lasted until a few weeks ago.

The Sulu sultanate was also under the control of Spain, but the Spaniards in 1885 signed the Madrid Protocol with Britain and Germany, relinquishing any claim to North Borneo.

The sultanate ended when Sultan Jamalul Kiram II signed the Carpenter Agreement on March 22, 1915, in which he ceded all political power to the United States.

The Philippines, however, continued to recognise the sultanate as a sovereign entity until the demise of Sultan Mohd Mahakuttah A. Kiram in 1986.

There are now at least 11 claimants to the title Sultan of Sulu, including Sultan Jamalul Kiram III.

MNLF elements among invaders

PETALING JAYA: The Sulu invaders are not officially recognised by any group other than the self-styled Sulu Sultanate and its supporters, said Universiti Pertahanan Nasional Malaysia Professor Dr Aruna Gopinath.

“This is just a name this group has decided to create and call themselves by so that they can come and attack us.

“The bigger threat is if other militants join this group under the banner of the south Philippines and try to attack us as well,” said Aruna, an expert on Philippine history, politics and security.

Some of the Sulu fighters were possibly trained by the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) led by Nur Misuari before they broke away from the group.

She explained that many of the armed militants in southern Philippines used to be members of the MNLF, from which many breakaway groups later emerged with most of them belonging to the Suluk or Tausug ethnic group, which the MNLF once represented.

“Some among the so-called Sulu army could have had combat experience during their previous stint in the MNLF before they broke away. They do have some degree of skill and are not mere marauders as there appears to be some quite capable people on the ground,” said Aruna.

She said that when Misuari became MNLF head he clamoured for secession but the Philippine Government insisted on autonomy as the only option.

Strike on the Philippine terrorists a success, extradite Sulu Sultan to Malaysia!

A Nuri helicopter departing for Kampung Tanduo to take part in an air offensive against the terrorists holed up there. Bernama pic



NO CHOICE: Police, military unleash massive offensive against terrorists

LAHAT DATU: SECURITY forces successfully launched a major offensive at daybreak yesterday on Sulu terrorists following a 21-day stand-off that had left eight policemen dead and triggered panic in Sabah's east coast.

In a never-before-seen offensive, security forces yesterday unleashed a massive strike involving the police and the military on Kampung Tanduo near here, where the terrorists were holed up.

While the number of deaths among the terrorists following the strike, codenamed Ops Daulat, was not immediately known, what was obvious was the tremendous support shown by Malaysians for this course of action.

Malaysians had run out of compassion for this band of terrorists as numerous efforts undertaken by the governments of Malaysia and the Philippines to end the stand-off peacefully, were ignored.

Some 2,000 security personnel from the armed forces and police were deployed yesterday in a 2km area in Kampung Tanduo after airstrikes. There were no reports of casualties from the Malaysian side.

Morale among the security forces was high, despite the fact that they lost eight of their comrades in clashes with terrorists several days ago.

Just after the strike, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, delivering an emotionally-packed speech at a gathering of Islamic scholars in Bukit Jalil, was firm when he spoke of their resoluteness in protecting Malaysia's sovereignty.

Najib, with a pained look as he narrated the grief he felt when meeting the widows of the policemen, also expressed his frustration that the terrorists had not heeded calls to withdraw and avoid bloodshed.

It was a tough call, but one that "as the leader of the government", Najib had to make.

The 16,000-odd crowd applauded in approval when Najib said the time for diplomacy had ended.

Nobody could have mistaken that as a show of arrogance. It was simply an endorsement that as the leader of the country, he was doing what needed to be done.

While some opposition leaders had politicised the issue, there were those who also threw their support behind yesterday's action.

Even Kelantan Menteri Besar Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat, an ardent critic of the government, supported the move, urging Sabah folk to remain loyal to the country and not help the terrorists.

Yesterday, three weeks after the Sulu gunmen landed on our shores, Malaysia and the Philippines agreed that they be labelled "terrorists".

This was decided at a meeting between Foreign Affairs Minister Datuk Seri Anifah Aman and his Philippine counterpart, Senator Albert F. del Rosario.

Anifah also asked that action be taken against the self-proclaimed Sultan of Sulu, Jamalul Kiram III, for inciting hatred and violence against Malaysians.

Yesterday's strike, however, is not the end of the issue.

Residents are afraid of reprisals by the terrorists but in a joint media briefing, the defence and home ministers assured Sabahans that they would always be protected.

Malaysia can extradite so-called Sulu Sultan 

 
Wanted: Jamalul speaking to the press in Manila as he affirms his sultanate’s claim to Sabah. — AFP

 

PETALING JAYA: Malaysia can seek the extradition of self-proclaimed Sulu Sultan Jamalul Kiram III from the Philippines to face the law over the intrusion into Sabah, legal experts said.

They said Malaysia’s arrest and extradition of Moro National Libera­tion Front leader Nur Misuari to the Philippines in 2001 following a request by that country had set a precedent for cooperation in dealing with such cases.

Muslim Lawyers Association of Malaysia Datuk Zainul Rijal Abu Bakar said the culprits, including those based in Philippines such as Jamalul Kiram, needed to be brought to Malaysia to face criminal charges of waging war against the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, an offence under the Penal Code that is punishable by death upon conviction.

“Our sovereignty has been challenged and while Malaysia wanted to avoid bloodshed they started firing, triggering action which resulted in our security personnel dead, which means there is no more room to forgive them,” said Zainul.

He added that since Jamalul Kiram did not directly take up weapons in Malaysian territory, he could be investigated for abetting to wage war, which also carries the death penalty upon conviction.

International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) Associate Professor Shamrahayu A. Aziz said the charge could be used against the culprits even if they were not Malaysian citizens because what mattered was where the crime was committed.

“It is also possible for Malaysia to request the extradition of a person who is not in our country if we can prove that the instructions came from him or that he instigated or incited the actions,” she said.

Emeritus Professor of Law at Univ­er­s­iti Teknologi Mara Prof Datuk Shad Saleem Faruqi said many Sections in Chapter 6 of the Penal Code could be used against the culprits.

He said Malaysians in Lahad Datu, who had given protection to the intruders, could also be charged under Section 125A of the Act, which makes it an offence to harbour any person in Malaysia or a foreign country who is at war or considered hostile against the King.

In addition, Shad Faruqi said the culprits could also be charged under the newly included Section 6A of the Penal Code, which deals with offences relating to terrorism.

On the possibility of the Philippines requesting to Malaysia to send its naval ships to offer assistance, Prof Dr Aruna Gopinath from Universiti Pertahanan Nasional Malaysia said it must only be done after obtaining an agreement from the Malaysian Government.

“If there is an offer from them to want to help or monitor then they must wait for an agreement from us, they cannot just sail here unilaterally as that would be trespassing,” she said.

In an unrelated development Raja Muda Azzimudie Kiram, the brother of the self-proclaimed Sulu Sultan Jamalul Kiram III, is believed to be alive and well even after the attack.

“He (the Raja Muda) is still alive,” the sultanate’s spokesman Abraham Idjirani told The Star in a phone interview from Manila.

“I spoke to him yesterday (Tuesday) morning and he said he and the troops were still in Sabah and still in good condition”.

However, Idjirani admitted he had not heard from Azzimudie since then but claimed he was “definitely okay”.

“The Malaysian security forces attacked an area that the Raja Muda and his troops had long since vacated. There are only four injured men, but they are all safe.” he said, referring to the Malaysian security force’s assault on the intruders in Lahad Datu early yesterday morning.

Sources: Asia News Network

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The West envious of global economy led by China

As central banks in the euro zone and Britain edge closer this week to deciding that their flagging economies need yet more monetary stimulus, they can be forgiven for casting an envious eye towards China.

The same goes for the United States. Because of deadlock in budget talks, mandatory federal spending cuts are now being phased. They will brake a recovery that, as Friday's jobs report is likely to show, is already frustratingly weak.

China, the biggest contributor to global growth in recent years, has plenty of headaches of its own, of course.

Over reliance on investment in heavy industry, a financial system rigged in favour of the state, and a failure to integrate some 140 million rural migrant workers into urban life top the list of structural problems.

Louis Kuijs, an economist with Royal Bank of Scotland in Hong Kong, adds rising inflation, a renewed climb in house prices and a rapid expansion in 'shadow banking' to the government's to-do list for 2013.

But Kuijs and other economists expect outgoing Premier Wen Jiabao to reaffirm a growth target of 7.5 percent for this year when he delivers his last 'state of the nation' report to the annual meeting of parliament that opens on Tuesday.

China entered 2013 with solid growth momentum thanks to measured policy stimulus in the second half of last year. That impetus is now fading somewhat after a strong fourth quarter, as figures for January and February will probably suggest.

So, just as the West is looking to China to boost global demand, China is counting on a pick-up in the West as 2013 unfolds to help exports and revive corporate investment, Kuijs said.

"Looking at trade and industrial production indicators, we are all expecting a strengthening global picture, coming especially from the United States and Europe, but it's still a forecast: it's not showing up yet in the hard data," he said.

Euro Zone Disappoints

Indeed, the European Commission is projecting that the euro zone economy will shrink in 2013 for the second straight year. And February's survey of purchasing managers was downright weak.

"This increases the chances of a rate cut, but it's still not our baseline assumption," said Petr Zemcik, director of European economics at Moody's Analytics in London. "The ECB has done all it can at this stage."

His comments were in line with a Reuters poll of economists, which saw a 90 percent chance that the ECB, the European Central Bank, would keep its main short-term interest rate unchanged at 0.75 percent when it meets on Thursday.

However, a growing minority expects the ECB will cut rates at some point. Doing so now, right after Italy's election produced a big protest vote against austerity, would invite the suspicion that the bank was acting out of political panic.

But President Mario Draghi is sure to be quizzed about further easing and possible activation of the ECB's bond-buying program for euro zone strugglers, especially if the bank lowers its 2013 growth and inflation forecasts again.

Jeffrey Anderson with the Institute for International Economics in Washington, a financial-industry lobby group, said a rate cut would send a useful signal of the importance of growth to voters weary of austerity.

The Italian economy has shrunk for six quarters in a row. Euro zone unemployment hit a record 11.9 percent in January.

At the same time, euro zone finance ministers, who meet on Monday, should excuse Italy from further fiscal tightening as its budget is close to structural balance, Anderson argued.

"Ways must still be found to prod Italy to move on overdue labor market liberalization. But action to boost near-term growth would help Europe to sustain the popular backing necessary to advance the reforms needed for the longer term," he said in a note.

Bank of England Closer to Easing

In Britain, the government seems determined to stick to budget austerity despite a sharp drop in manufacturing in February and a stinging defeat for Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservative party in a parliamentary by-election.

This keeps the onus on the Bank of England, three of whose nine policymakers have already voted to expand the central bank's stock of asset purchases, now set at 375 billion pounds.

That could turn into a majority as soon as Thursday, when the BOE meets to set policy, if a survey two days earlier of the all-important services sector is weak, said Simon Hayes, an economist at Barclays Capital in London.

Further easing by the Federal Reserve is not on the cards. But job figures on Friday are likely to underscore that the U.S. central bank is in no hurry to withdraw its stimulus - the message Chairman Ben Bernanke relayed to Congress last week.

According to a Reuters poll, firms probably added 160,000 non-farm jobs last month, in line with January's 157,000 gain, while the unemployment rate held steady at 7.9 percent.

That is well above the Fed's goal of 6.5 percent. Moreover, federal spending cuts, if not reversed, will stiffen fiscal headwinds and could lop 0.5 percent off growth over the rest of this year, many economists estimate.

Nevertheless, Jim O'Sullivan, chief U.S. economist with High Frequency Economics in Valhalla, New York, is confident that it is just a matter of time before the Fed's ultra-easy policy starts to bear more fruit.

Job growth was already brisk enough to reduce the unemployment rate given a secular decline in the participation rate due to an ageing population, he argued.

"Based on what we're seeing in the labor market, in the battle between monetary stimulus and fiscal drag, the Fed is winning," O'Sullivan said. - Reuters

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