Tuanku Mizan Zainal Abidin will be officially installed as the 13th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia today. He, who is the also the Sultan of Terengganu, took oath of office as the Yang di-Pertuan Agong on 13 December 2006, succeeding the 12th Yang di-Pertuan Agong, Tuanku Syed Sirajuddin Putra Jamalullail, who is the Raja of Perlis.

The installation ceremony will be held at the Istana Negara, Kuala Lumpur. It is said that today’s installation ceremony is expected to be the last to be held at the existing Istana Negara as the national palace will be relocated to a new building in Jalan Duta in 2009.

(Speech in Parliament by Opposition Leader, Lim Kit Siang (DAP - Ipoh Timur) on Ministry of Energy, Water and Communications during 2006 Supplementary Supply estimates committee stage debate on Monday 23 April 2007)

The Ministry of Energy, Water and Communications has recently created havoc among wireless broadband providers with its proposal to violate the National Broadband Plan (NBP) to revoke licences to broadband service providers to operate on the 3.4-3.6-Gigahertz (GHz) frequency - the extended C-Band spectrum.

Ten days ago, the Minister concerned, Datuk Seri Dr. Lim Keng Yaik said use of the extended C-band frequency by the wireless broadband providers was interfering with the operations of the Measat-3 communications satellite.

He blamed the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) which had given out the licences for the predicament.

Seven FWA (Fixed Wireless Access) broadband operators i.e. Airzed, AtlasONE, eB Tech, Nasioncom, TTDotCom, Maxis Broadband and TM who are now operating between spectrum 3.4 - 3.6 GHz - the extended C-band spectrum licensed to them by the Regulator (MCMC) since 2003 - are now seeing their total investment of over RM400 million going down the drain, threatening the ricebowls of some 400 workers, as well as scuttling their investment plans for some RM300 million in the next 24 months!

These companies are operating mainly in Klang Valley. In a presentation with broadband industry players, MEASAT told them on 5th April 2007 that the continued use of the 3.4 -3.6 GHz band by FWA services will have catastrophic impact on the viability of the MEASAT-3 satellite, MEASAT and the wider Malaysian ICT industry.

MEASAT claimed that they had requested MCMC to clearly and promptly reconfirm the priority given to them in the 3.4 -3.6 GHz band, seek alternative frequency bands for FWA services and migrate these services to allow MEASAT to use the entire 3.4 -3.6 GHz band before Q4 2007.

MEASAT also claimed that MCMC had in 2003 assured MEASAT that the 3.4 -3.5 GHz extended C-band frequency band would be cleared of FWA services within 5 years (by Q4 2007) and will be given to MEASAT.

[Read full article...]

A month ago, Lee Hui Ling, 22, from Taman Johor Jaya, Johor Bahru, died after she was in a coma for a week due to serious injuries when she was dragged out from her car by a group of car jackers.

This time, Lee Hoon Hwa, 21, from Taman Skudai was brutally stabbed by robbers who came through the roof of her double-storey house. It was believed that Hoon Hwa put up a fight with the robbers before being fatally stabbed in her abdomen.

Sunday Star

KUANTAN: Stop responding to scams and they will die a natural death.

Deputy Internal Security Minister Datuk Fu Ah Kiow said many complaints had been received about Internet investment scams and no amount of enforcement by his ministry could stop criminals from finding new ways to cheat the public.

“These unscrupulous people are never short of tricks to dupe the gullible ones and these scams will keep on recurring but in different forms.

“The police are prepared to take action but the most important thing is for the public not to fall prey to such scams,” he added.

It boiled down to the people themselves who were greedy and wanted fast and easy money - a fact that con men exploited, Fu said.

“When there is demand, there is supply,” he added, responding to questions on the latest e-investment scam - buy-e-barrel - which abruptly closed, leaving thousands of investors in the lurch over several million ringgit.

In order to kill off such scams, the public were the ones with the power by simply not responding to such activities, he said.

“If the public do not believe in it, it will fail by itself,” he added.

He also said that anything related to cyberspace came under the jurisdiction of the Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission and the police would intervene if there was a whiff of criminal activity.

“If there are criminal elements, it will come under the Commercial Crime Department,” he told reporters after presenting donations by the Association of Wives of Ministers and Deputy Ministers (Bakti) to five Fourth Formers from schools here yesterday.

Fu, who is Kuantan MP, gave the donations on behalf of his wife Datin Chang Mun Lin to the students who scored good results in the Penilaian Menengah Rendah examination.

This is not the first time I am writing about this. Perhaps not even the 2nd time, I can’t remember. But recently, chain messages and bulletins spread in Friendster again. As usual, most of these chain messages require you to forward to your friends within x minutes, otherwise, some bad luck is said to happen, and these include claims that “you will get murdered” and in some distasteful ones, it even claims that “your mom will die in x hours”.

Come on, I have ignored and deleted all these useless messages but nothing happened, alright? Why not we all play our role and ignore all these messages? By ignoring them, nothing will happen to you or your family, ok? And best of all, we get to save Internet resources for more useful transmission of data. And also save the computing resources of Friendster web servers and database servers which have been overloaded and work slowly at times.

To those who always forward them and so gullible to believe the contents of these chain messages, don’t you think it is distasteful to claim that the recipient or the recipient’s mom will die if one does not forward the message? Think again.