Global News Journal
Beyond the World news headlines
German banker bows out after stirring race, religion debate
A German central banker, Thilo Sarrazin, whose outspoken comments on race and religion sparked a fierce national debate unexpectedly quit the Bundesbank board on Thursday evening, sparing Chancellor Angela Merkel, President Christian Wulff and Bundesbank President Axel Weber a messy legal and political battle.
But Sarrazin, 65, made it clear that he will not go away and plans to use his new-found fame to press forward with the issues tackled in his best-selling book: that Muslims are undermining German society and threatening to change its character and culture with their higher birth rate. Whether Germans like his views or not, there is no denying that Sarrazin has struck a chord.
“It seemed to me to be too risky…to try to push forward against the entire political establishment and 70 percent of the media,” Sarrazin told hundreds of people at a book reading in Potsdam near Berlin. “That would have been arrogant and wouldn’t have worked. That’s why I’m making this strategic retreat now and will tackle the issues that are important to me.”
Despite widespread condemnation from political leaders, opinion polls showed there is widespread public support for at least some of Sarrazin’s observations in his bestselling book “Deutschland schafft sich ab” (“Germany does away with itself”).
Some of his book’s more explosive passages include:
* ”In every European country, due to their low participation in the labour market and high claim on state welfare benefits, Muslim migrants cost the state more than they generate in added economic value. In terms of culture and civilisation, their notions of society and values are a step backwards.”
* “I don’t want my grandchildren and great-grandchildren to live in a mostly Muslim country where Turkish and Arabic are widely spoken, women wear headscarves and the day’s rhythm is determined by the call of the muezzin.”
Acronym soup swamps Malaysia reform drive
Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak says he has embarked on a series of radical economic reforms. In reality it feels as if he has unleashed a barrage of incomprehensible acronyms on the unsuspecting public of this Southeast Asian nation.
The charge for economic reform is being led by the snappily named PEMANDU. As well as being the Malay word for “driver” it stands for the government’s Performance Management and Delivery Unit.
PEMANDU is in charge of formulating and implementing NKRAs (National Key Result Areas), MKRAs (Ministerial Key Result Areas) and getting “Big Results Fast”, according to its website, although it singularly failed to win political backing for a radical revamp of Malaysia’s costly subsidy regime.
It is also helping to formulate the 10th Malaysia Plan, 10MP for those in the know, a communist-era sounding 5-year plan that aims to help lift this middle income country to developed nation status by 2020.
PEMANDU is part of the GTP, the Government Transformation Programme, which also involves the SITF (Special Implementation Task Force). Throw in the NKEAs (National Key Economic Areas), another thinktank known as the EPU (Economic Planning Unit) and you haven’t reached the end of the alphabet spaghetti dreamed up by Malaysia’s civil servants…. There’s still the ETP. the NEP (sometimes good, sometimes bad) and the NEM (New Economic Model).
To be fair to Malaysia, it is not the only country in the world that is wallowing in economic acronyms, the U.S. gave the world TARP, a $700 billion bank bailout programme, and the even more mind-numbing ABCP MMMFLF (don’t ask), but it is fair to ask what Malaysians have got from all of this.
Is Malaysia’s net clampdown at odds with knowledge economy?
The opposition wants to cut the sale of alcohol in a state that it rules and now the government wants to restrict Internet access .
Malaysia is a multicultural country of 27 million people in Southeast Asia. It has a majority Muslim population that of course is not allowed to drink by religion. Yet clearly some do as shown by the sentencing to caning for a young woman handed down recently
(Photo: Prime Minister Najib Razak leaving the National Mosque as he prepared to mark his first 100 days in office in July. Reuters/Bazuki Muhammad)
Proposals by the Pan Malaysian Islamic Party, which wants an Islamic state, could effectively end the sale of alcohol in the country’s richest state, Selangor, which is next to the capital Kuala Lumpur.
Its rules would penalise not only Muslims that consumed alcohol, but also for example Muslim shop assistants in say Tesco’s who could be fined if they sold alcohol.
This is coming from a country whose most celebrated film maker, PJ Ramlee, made movies featuring alcohol, smoking and night clubs as well as cross-racial relationships and whose first premier Tunku Abdul Rahman, a Muslim of course and a member of one of Malaysia’s royal families, was fond of whisky.
And the Internet? If you want to find out anything in Malaysia, you need to read the net. The country’s newspapers, largely owned by the political parties that have run this country for 51 years and which need to be licensed annually, feed their readers a steady diet of pro-government propaganda.
Malaysia is known for talking big and acting small. That’s why nobody thinks they can enforce the Internet restriction order.
from Africa News blog:
Can Zuma live up to unity pledge?
Pledging to work for national unity is pretty much a formality for any election winner, but in the case of South Africa’s Jacob Zuma it may be more than a platitude. It may need to be.
“The new President of the Republic will be a president for all, and he will work to unite the country around a programme of action that will see an improvement in the delivery of services,” Zuma said after the African National Congress won its sweeping victory.
“We may disagree on how to bring about a better life for all, but what unites us is the fact that this country belongs to all of us, black, white, coloured and Indian equally. We will need to work together on issues that are in the national interest, on which there is no need to compete or permanently bicker.”
Despite the strongest opposition challenge since the end of apartheid, the slick ANC campaign delivered the vote and persuaded a majority of South Africans that the party that has ruled since 1994 could also be the one to deliver change – more action against poverty, crime, AIDS and other concerns.
But unity is always going to be tough in a country with as many divisions as South Africa. The formerly monolithic ANC itself split last year after it ousted former President Thabo Mbeki.
The vote clearly showed up the racial divide 15 years after the end of rule by the white minority.
The vast majority of black Africans had clearly voted for the ANC, whose credentials are still strong for ending apartheid. The voters included those in KwaZulu Natal province, where the Inkatha Freedom Party used to be dominant. Zuma, a son of the soil, definitely helped the party win more votes there.
I think Mr Zuma is a very capable leader and there’s really no need for anyone to believe that he’s going to destroy the country. His only problem is his personal life which is so messed up. If he can keep his personal life clean andout of the media spotlight, his work will be made a lot easier.
I don’t think very many people in Germany have anything against the hard working Turkish immigrant of the sixties that tried to the best of his abilities to learn German and fit in.
In Germany, just as in the US, the immigrants who don’t, or can’t integrate into the mainstream society are a problem.
As the Germans say, “what if we would go to their Muslim countries and insist that we can drink beer, and lie on the beach in bikinis? Where would the equality be then?”