Christmas in Abu Dhabi

Drinking at one of the pub in a leading hotel in Abu Dhabi

Scene in the city of Abu Dhabi with thick fog in one of the early morning

Celebrate Christmas at one of the contractor cafetaria in Abu Dhabi

Most buildings in Abu Dhabi decorated for the National day celebration till New Year

There are many holidays towards the end of the year. We have the Awal Ramadhan,Christmas and New Year day.Both Awal Ramadhan and New Year are declared holiday.However Christmas is a working day in UAE.Some private companies do give leave to their Christian staff to celebrate the ocassion.

Most shopping centre in Abu Dhabi are well decorated and lighted up for the festival.Attended a Christmas gathering organised by one of our contractor on Christmas day.Malaysian food were being served there and there were also Christmas events and songs played to entertain the guests.

Attended the New Year celebration at one of the hotel pub in the city where liqour are readily available.Scantily clads Filipinos dancers and singers performed every night at the pub where almost one third of the crowds are from Malaysia.

This year there is no fireworks display for the countdown to the new year as most of the Arab states included UAE have decided to forgo the celebration as a mark of respect for the Palestines whose land are being bombarded by the Israel.

Early morning in Abu Dhabi could be very cold and sometimes you will experienced thick fog which enveloped the city.Visibilty is so bad that some flight to Abu Dhabi airport have to be diverted.

Winter in Abu Dhabi

Christmas decoration at Lulu Hypermarket in Al Wahda Mall.

In front of Al Wahda Mall shopping mall

Me, in front of the Malaysian Embassy during the Hari Raya Haji open house

Scene outside the Malaysian embassy in Abu Dhabi during the Hari Raya Haji open house gathering.

Giant UAE flag raised up at Al Wahda Mall for the UAE National Day celebration

Raining in Reem Island, Abu Dhabi.

Time passed really fast...have spent more than 5 months in the Emirates.Winter have arrived in Abu Dhabi and it will my first winter experience in my lifetime.Before winter, rain started to fall after more than 4 months without rain and it happened immediately after the sand storm.It was really a relief to see rainfall unlike in Malaysia which is we can experience almost every month.Many sports events in Abu Dhabi was postponed due to the unexpected rainfall and some parts of Abu Dhabi roads was even flooded.

On 2nd December 2008, UAE celebrated their 37th independence day and many major shopping centre here organised special events to commemorate the occasion.In Al Wahda Mall which is within walking distance from my villa,the mall organised traditional dance show to mark the event.Streets were decorated with colourful lightings and there was a fireworks display on the eve of the national day.

Hari Raya Haji which also falls within the same week is a big occasion here.The government offices was closed for more than a week to mark the occasion. Attended the Malaysian Embassy open house last Friday and it was great to interact with so many Malaysian working here.Some came as far as Dubai to enjoy the Malaysian food here like the bungkus nasi lemak and sateh which they missed dearly.Christmas is around the corner and many shopping centre have put up decoration to light up the occasion.

Iraqi shoe-thrower captures Mideast rage at Bush- Reuters

BEIRUT (Reuters) - The hurling of shoes at U.S. President George W. Bush on his farewell visit to Iraq strikes many in the Middle East as a fittingly furious comment on what they see as his calamitous legacy in the region.

Arab and Iranian TV stations have gleefully replayed the clip, sometimes in slow motion, of an Iraqi reporter calling Bush a "dog" and throwing his shoes at him -- the Middle East's tastiest insults -- at a Baghdad news conference on Sunday.

The affront was a twisted echo of the triumphal moment for Bush when joyous Iraqis used their footwear to beat a statue of Saddam Hussein toppled by U.S. invading troops in 2003.
"It indicates how much antagonism he's been able to create in the whole region," former Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher told Reuters, adding that the incident was regrettable.
Bush had harmed America's reputation and the friendship many had felt for it. "Despite past mistakes in its policies, there was always a redeeming factor. In this particular case, there doesn't seem to have ever been a redeeming factor," Maher said.

Muntazer al-Zaidi, who works for independent al-Baghdadiya television, has shot to local stardom for his attack on Bush and his cry: "This is a goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people, dog."
He has also won instant fame abroad -- a poem on an Islamist website praises him as "a hero with a lion's heart" -- although the Iraqi government slated his "barbaric and ignominious act."
Zaidi's crude public display of disdain for an incumbent U.S. president hit a chord with many in the Middle East.

"The Iraqi journalist is a true and free Baghdadi," said a Saudi private sector employee who gave his name as Abu Faisal. "He was brave and did us proud. Bush destroyed (Iraq) so surely he deserved to be beaten with a shoe."
Khalid al-Dakhil, a Saudi university lecturer in social politics, said the incident summed up Bush's impact on the Middle East, which "will haunt this region for a long time."
Dakhil, who said Bush had committed war crimes in Iraq after launching a war based on "lies" that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction, nevertheless fretted about the shoe-throwing.

"While understandable, it wasn't the most sophisticated and constructive way to express one's anger at Bush, especially coming from an educated Arab journalist. It reinforces the stereotype ideas in the Western world about Arabs."
Some Palestinians, whose hopes of independent statehood have withered in the eight-year Bush era, relished the moment.

"A shoe company in Hebron claimed the attack on Bush and they will give the attacker shoes all his life," runs one joke being exchanged on mobile telephones in the Gaza Strip.

How to become very rich in Malaysia- The Star

Connections and the ability to flip assets can get you going places




If you have ever wondered how to get rich in Malaysia – fabulously rich and very quickly at that – here’s a model that you might want to look at very closely. Not easy to do but if you do have a couple of projects in the bag, it will set you up for several lifetimes.

First you need connections – strong ones, the higher the better and if it goes right up to the top all the better. You need this because you need to convince the powers that be that your projects are good.But you might ask if your projects are so good, why do you need connections? Why don’t you just go out and execute? Good questions, those. Here’s the answer - you need the state to give you something to do the deal that will help the nation.

Still can’t figure it out? See, it’s like this. You want to help the country, right? The country needs say a port. But you can’t build a port just like that. You need land to build a port. You tell the state or federal government you need land – cheap land, preferably free to build the port.
Or to take another example, you want to help the country by building a power plant. But look, you need land too and not only that you need the power to be sold. So you want an agreement – an iron-clad one to sell the power to Tenaga Nasional and to pass through all costs.

You see, that’s your reward as an entrepreneur – you get someone else to build the power plant, they guarantee the performance of the plant and someone else guarantees to buy your power and pay for all your costs. Nice deal? You bet. Billionaires have been made that way.
Or you may want to start an air hub. If you are persuasive enough, you can even convince the government to compulsorily acquire the land and sell it to you cheap. Once you have cheap land, lucrative contracts and concession agreements, the sky’s the limit.

Let’s take it a step further. If you want to realise the value of all of these things that you have and still keep control of them, it’s nice to have a listed company into which you can inject them. Inject one asset for shares and you gain control of the company. And then inject others over the years for cash, taking the money out of the company. Who says you can’t have your cake and eat it too?

Do it right and get a flow of assets to inject in (you can do anything with discounted cash flow valuations – just change the discount rate, and presto, the value changes!), and you get a tidy flow of profits and cash into your personal accounts over the years. I mean a really tidy flow.
Just how much can you make this way, you ask? Why don’t you take a guess first? Did you say RM500mil? Guess again. RM1bil? How about five times that and you may be getting into the right order of magnitude.

One Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar Albukhary actually made some RM4.5bil that way - actually more because he still controls the listed company. (MMC’s latest RM1.7bil deal irks investors7) We are not saying he is the only one, which makes your chances of joining the ranks better – if you are connected to high places that is.But then again, if things change – and that’s still a big ‘if’ – you might not find it so easy anymore.

P. Gunasegaram is managing editor of The Star. He thinks it is high time we changed the way we did business

IF OBAMA HAD BEEN A MALAYSIAN (MALAYSIAKINI)

*From a Disappointed Member (Malaysiakini) Nov 14, 2008 4:20pm

It is nice to know that Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi thinks anyone can become PM in Malaysia. He must think we are stupid and blind to the realities of being ethnic minorities in Malaysia.If Barack Obama was unfortunate enough to have been born in Malaysia, he couldn't even become the general manager of PKNS, never mind, president of the US, the most powerful country in the world.If he became a born-again Christian in his teenage years, keeping in view his father was African Muslim, Jakim would have hauled him off to a religious rehabilitation detention centre in Malaysia, and his kids would have been taken away from him.Michelle Obama would then have been advised by our racist religious authorities to divorce him.

Just for not being Malay, Umno would have overlooked his obvious talents and intelligence, and they would have denied him permanent residence or a citizenship and he can forget about any potential scholarships, job promotions or a place in a public university.Like Vijay Singh, world champion golfer, he would have been forced to emigrate to live elsewhere.If Barack Obama had advocated equal opportunity and equal rights in Malaysia, he would have been demonised by* Utusan Malaysia* as being anti-Malay and anti-Islam and taken into custody under the ISA just like what happened to Teresa Kok, and he would have had Molotov cocktails chucked into his parent's house, and had curly daggers waved at him.

If he had advocated rule of law like Zaid Ibrahim, they would called him a traitor to the Malay race.If he advocated democracy like Anwar Ibrahim, then Umno, the world champions of fitnah would have fixed him for sodomy.If like the jailed Hindraf 5 leaders, Barack Obama tells us to 'hope for change' and have the 'audacity of hope' then it would have been ISA and water cannons for him and his supporters.For practicing freedom of religion and conscience, and following the religion of his choice, he would have been charged with apostasy, and don't forget, some of our Malaysian politicians have advocated death for apostasy, just to prove their religious standing in the eyes of theirethnic voters.Abdullah Badawi's statement that anyone can be PM in Malaysia is a sick joke and a clear attempt to mislead the public, and to assuage the collective privileged guilt of Umno's wealthy and corrupt warlords who head a party dedicated to race supremacy, religious and racialapartheid, and the worst type of racial and religious politics.

I am so glad Barack Obama will be the next president of the US. It goes to show that ordinary voters in the most powerful country in the world are prepared to reject the evils of racism, and embrace solidarity with their fellow voters in the context of equal rights and equal citizenship.They have shown long-suffering ordinary Malaysians what real muhibbah looks like instead of the dagger-waving displays (Umno AGM), Umno Youth beating up women delegates at peace conferences (Apcet II, KL), and nameless criminals chucking Molotov cocktails into women MPs' houses - that is, what I would term the Biro Tata Negara brand of nation-building by Umno.

I doubt if Barack Obama can have any impact on Malaysia's racist politics but it is good to know that people in America can still make a common stand with their fellow voters across racial lines for the common good.I challenge Umno to invite Barack Obama to Malaysia to show him the political and judicial wonders of our Malaysian system.
I challenge Umno's gutless politicians to tell Barack Obama, president-elect of the United States of America what opportunities he would have had if he were born in Malaysia

Umno in way of open tender and transparancy- The Malaysian Insider

NOV 14 — Just after the general election in March, a clutch of Umno MPs stopped a minister along the Parliament lobby, badgering and threatening him. Their bone of contention: their multimillion ringgit projects and contracts had not been approved.
A government official who witnessed the unsavoury encounter recalled to The Malaysian Insider: "It was not pleasant at all. The MPs were not interested in hearing any explanation. They were making all sorts of accusations and complained that they needed funds to carry out their political activities for the year.''
After being abused, the minister marched into Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s office in the tower block to seek guidance. Since then, senior government officials and other ministers have also complained of being pressured by elected representatives and Umno warlords over the award of contracts.
This anecdotal evidence suggests that Datuk Seri Najib Razak will face a tough task of making the open tender system the norm and making the procurement system in government more transparent when he becomes the prime minister in March.
In the past few weeks, he and other government leaders have sprinkled their speeches liberally with the open tender system. In his first meeting at the Finance Ministry, he made it clear that direct negotiation will be the exception rather than the rule.
In doing so, he sounded much like Abdullah in his first 100 days in office. The PM promised to dismantle the opaque manner of awarding contracts, which resulted in bloated concessions and privatisation projects being given to well-connected individuals and companies during the Mahathir era. But if he is honest, Abdullah will admit that he fell far short of his targets.
Despite leading the Barisan Nasional to a handsome victory in March 2004 and having a 91 per cent approval rating among Malaysians, more often than not he succumbed to pressure from Umno warlords and awarded contracts on the basis of direct negotiations.
A government official said: "I don't think there were threats involved because the PM's position was secure. It was a case of rewarding supporters and understanding that it is expensive to become a politician here.''
The pressure is going to be just as intense on Najib and Umno officials who occupy senior positions in government to deliver the largesse. More so in this election season where millions of ringgit are being spent by individuals who want to be elected as deputy president, vice-president, supreme council member, division chief, branch chief, etc.
In 2004, those vying for a place on the relatively unimportant Umno Youth exco spent close to RM1 million to buy support. This time, more than 40 individuals are competing for a place on the 20-seat exco.
The winners and losers expect to recover their "investment'' after the election season. The easiest way to do this is to enter direct negotiations with the government to build schools, bridges and other infrastructure. More senior party members will have their eye on more lucrative projects including the transmission cable to send electricity from Bakun to Peninsular Malaysia and the plan to develop prime real estate in Jalan Cochrane.
Yes, it is going to be tough to say no to these warlords bearing big brown envelopes. But some government officials argue that Malaysians should also accept that the open tender system is fraught with weaknesses.
"Our open tender system is not always transparent. Some parties seem to have access to inside information and know how to tailor their bids accordingly. What the government needs to do is ensure if there is direct negotiation, then parties have the capability to carry out a contract and do not profit excessively. And when there is an open tender, it must be a truly clean process. Only then there will be confidence in the government procurement system, '' said a senior government official.
Can the open tender system become the norm in Malaysia? Perhaps, one day when Umno politicians lose their sense of entitlement and political patronage is not so prevalent. Until then, we can only hope.

High Time for Samy to leave...

After the disastrous General Election results in March, reform in the leadership of Barisan National component parties seems to be moving in the right direction with the changing of old guards taken place.Slowly but surely most of the leaders have to give way due to unpopular support from the grassroot members.UMNO President Abdullah Badawi have to step down to pave the way for his Deputy Najib to take over by March next year.

MCA, the second largest component party of the ruling front have just elected Ong Tee Kiat and Chua Soi lek as their new President and Deputy President respectively in the just concluded MCA election last weekend.This is possible as both Ong Ka Ting and Chan Kong Choy refuse to defend their present post.Another component party,Gerakan also see Koh Tsu Khoon returned unopposed as their new President after their veteren leader Lim Keng Yaik retired.

Among the old guards of Dr M era who are still around are MIC president Samy Vellu and UMNO Wanita Chief Datuk Seri Rafidah Aziz.Interestingly Datuk Shahrizat, have qualified to contest for the Wanita President post after gaining enough nominations to challenge the incumbent Rafidah even though she have announce her intention not to contest for the President post.

However only MIC President, Samy Vellu have stubbornly refuse to step down even though he was humiliated after losing his Sg Siput Parliament seat.He had yet to see the reality of Malaysian politics.Now he is still keen to fight for his political survival as reported by Athi Veeranggan from Malaysiankini...part of the report are as follows...

Politics is the art of the possible and impossible possibilities becoming impossibilities and vice-versa. MIC president S Samy Vellu stands out among those who have mastered the art.Just two years ago, he backed G Palanivel to challenge and successfully oust incumbent S Subramaniam for the deputy president's post.Prior to that, Subramaniam had been stripped of his government post by the party supremo when he was dropped as MIC candidate for the Segamat parliamentary seat in the 2004 general election

Now, Samy Vellu is said to be planning a reconciliation with his old nemesis Subramaniam to oust Palanivel, with whom the MIC leader no longer sees eye-to-eye.Palanivel was widely regarded as Samy Vellu's successor as party president.Insiders stressed however, that Samy Vellu only wanted Palanivel as an interim deputy to eventually make way for another stalwart, S Sothinathan.The Samy Vellu-Palanivel partnership can be described as rocky at best, and things boiled over just before the March general election, in which many MIC leaders, including the party president and Palanivel, were booted out by voters across the country.Just before MIC's humiliating performance on March 8, Palanivel is believed to have told Barisan Nasional chairman and Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi that "he was ready to take over MIC" from beleaguered Samy Vellu, who had lost his commanding influence among Malaysian Indians.