Parting Gift

PTPTN has apparently frozen all loans to students’ of Selangor’s Unisel.

Apparently, the move is courtesy of Higher Education Minister Mohamed Khaled Nordin as confirmed to Utusan Malaysia.

Of late, PTPTN has come under the limelight of sorts with calls from the Pakatan Rakyat for it to be abolished and for the Federal government to introduce free higher education.

The issue was debated quite extensively by the dynamic of Umno’s Khairy Jamaluddin and PJKR’s Rafizi Ramli and I don’t believe that any “correct” conclusion was reached despite the heavily partisanship stance on the matter.

Now, rather than leave things on an intellectual banter level between two foes, along came Khaled Nordin upping the ante with a decision with actual impact.

Come on la En Minister…

I might not agree with the whole abolish PTPTN argument, but this is clearly a discriminatory and spiteful move of a political score.

Who do you think the students will blame for the frozen loans? Pakatan?

I don’t think so. Not when there are already moves to provide interest free loans to students from Selangor.

I mean, even PMNTR did not pilih bulu when he distributed the much maligned BR1M cash handouts, correct?

Elligible Selangorians, Penangites, Kedahans and Kelantanese all got their dues.

In terms of political brownie points, such a move just gives Pakatan the extra ammo - already quite substantial in stock thanks to the NFC, the PKFZ and numerous other public procurement debacles - for their campaigns against Barisan.

Abolishing PTPTN is first and foremost a political talk; the reality is that it is not something QED what’s with the multitude on side issues to tackle.

A roundtable discourse on how best to approach the appreciably noble objective of free – or partially free – higher education would have been the better choice as regards the nation’s best interest.

Not this over-the-top, clearly Partisan’s move.

What bloody shame.

Unstrange Bedfellows

And here we have the apology from NST on the Islam / Scientology, urm, word-replaced newspiece:

We hereby confirm that we have made a grave error in publishing the statements in the article. We accept that in his speech in the Australian Parliament referred to in the article, Mr Xenophon did not use the word “Islam” and neither did he assert that Islam is not a religious organisation but a criminal organisation hiding behind its religious belief.

As I don’t read the print NST, I am unsure where the clarification / apology is.

Nothing was said about the damning sub heading: “Impartiality Questioned: Anti-Islam Australian Lawmaker Comes Under Fire” though.

Then again, absolutely NOTHING newsworthy had occurred here in Malaysia, in Australia or any other Islamic-majority nation since the 2^nd of May that the offending article came out.

No rally calling for his “head”; no “Sod off you Islamophobe”. Nada. Yilek.

Perhaps, nobody gave a hoot to what NST had written then anyway.

Then again NST was NOT a solo offender as the same dangerous bullshitting was taken up in the rabidly anti-opposition, anti-DAP, anti-Anwar, anti-PR Utusan.

There the author quoted verbatim the same offending remarks, without even noting where the quote was sourced from.

So, both NST and UTUSAN must have gotten the statement from somewhere, didn’t they?

The Million Ringgit question thus: from where? Who replaced the word Scientology with Islam?

No need to bother on question of “For what purpose” as we know exactly why.

Utusan and NST, huh.

Hmm.

Strange bedfellows NOT.

Another slip

According to NST OnLine today , the picture on the right is Datuk Shahrir Abdul Samad. Shahrir was speaking on the Balik Kampung No Bus worry.

I wonder who did the captioning.

Nice picture, though way off in accuracy and so soon after the Tun Hussein Onn advertorial debacle.

Must have some really overworked staff there.

Ah, well, beautiful paintings are always better than some of the racially heated stuff we've been reading of late.

So Shahrir it is then.

PS: NST took out the picture by lunch time.