She was first admitted four years ago for intractable spinal pain, after a motor accident while on duty for TV3, and referred to several pain specialists in the Klang Valley. A visiting Australian pain specialist, a former Malaysian, Dr Sundara Raj, also examined her and thought a spinal (implanted) nerve stimulator would help her. She got it done in Australia, which eased her pain much, her regular visits to the PMC Emergency Department for pain relief reduced to a trickle. Her pain worsened dramatically after she was assaulted about six months ago. She decided, or was possibly told, she could be helped only by those who implanted the stimulator in Sydney. Nearly RM400,000 was collected in days after the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, the deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, and other VIPs called on her.

What led to this remarkable diatribe? Last month, an Australian NGO, funded by big corporations to attack NGOs which challenge its funders' worldview, came on to this remarkable discovery, which the semi-official Malaysian newagency Bernama dutify reported in depth, that Malaysian NGOs are funded by sundry foreign groups and foundations -- none got more than US$10,000 -- and the Malaysian media jumped at the change to defame them. The local NGOs, instead of a principled response, whimpered and tried to explain away the contributions. But this red herring did not work. When the Prime Minister starts a campaign these days to divert attention, the public gets bored and look away. But he adds another issue for which he would be sorry he raised it.

The MAB spokesman also believes that the World Trade Centre and Pentagon terrorist attacks in the United States did not affect KLIA at all, while it did every other airport in the world. Why? Because "its traffic profile is mainly Asian, European and the Australian routes. And, no doubt, those who travel to Kuala Lumpur are so focussed on shopping in the airport's shops that they are not frightened to fly at all as they would if their destination was Singapore?

Australia, like the United States, allows for, indeed invites, migration, but those she wants have to be highly educated or politically acceptable. It is this short-term policy of political correctness in immigration that puts her policies to test in the court of world opinion. For years, a "White Australia" policy made it all but impossible for non-Caucasians to migrate to Australia, while Caucasians could for the equivalent of ten sterling pounds. Racism was ingrained in the Australian state, until it was removed in the 1970s. In the waning years of the 19th centuries, towns down the coast of Australia hurriedly passed legislation to prevent Chinese who had fled China from landing. Those who did were confined to menial jobs, and regarded as non-persons.

So, is the Malaysian government targetting those who favour the Taliban in Malaysia, but would not mind those who support the Masood faction? Could there be some truth to the Australian government's charge that Malaysia provides a safe haven for those fleeing the Talibans on condition they leave as expeditiously as possible to third countries? Our Yemeni foreign minister, Dato' Syed Hamid Albar, denies it. But there has been an unsual arrival of Afghans flying first class and staying in five-star hotels. If Malaysia is frightened of Afghans fomenting rebellion in Malaysia, why are they allowed here? Or is she saying that only Talibans export revolution and others do not?

Tan Sri Vincent sued for defamation, got an injunction against Ganesh under Australia's Fair Trading Laws, got the New South Wales government incensed, to make him realise that in Australia things like what he proposed to do are done differently. Injunctions are not automatically granted in Australia against journalists sued for libel. Ganesh countersued. Tan Sri Vincent, deciding discretion the better part of valour, discontinued his action. The courts allowed it on condition that this matter be never the subject of fresh action in Australia or Malaysia. Since then, the Australian Stock Exchange in Sydney suspended Tan Sri Vincent's listed company there, Carlovers, and he is about to dispose of his shares in it.

It replays the animosity between Prime Minister and Prisoner, which began one fateful night in September 1998 when Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed had Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim dismissed from UMNO and as deputy prime minister. He is accused of sodomy and corruption, and jailed, in highly controversial trials, for 15 years. The government releases, quietly and without fanfare, a videocasette allegedly of Dato' Seri Anwar in a homosexual encounter with unknown people. So unprofessional it was that when the Prime Minister showed it to senior Malaysian military officers and diplomats, few believed it. But the tape was released into the public domain surrepticiously. The Anwaristas retaliated, with VCDs of their own, with one particularly damning Australian Broadcasting Corporation report on the Anwar Ibrahim trials selling at least 500,000 copies.

More than that, those who bought the ticket at "early bird rates" of a ten per cent discount, after the F-1 race last year, now find they could be bought at 40 to 50 per cent off. The RM1,000 ticket -- the same amount the deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, doled out to indigent Felda farm settles to overcome a worsening political problem of poverty and hopelessness -- works out at US$250, and correspondingly lower for the others, cheap enough for many Western, Singapore, Hongkong, Japanese, even Australian, men and women to fly in and watch the race. But not for Malaysians.

The federal government is beseiged. The police overreact. It has but lost all modicum of fair play. The law is enforced arbitrarily, Opposition complaints of corruption in high places is routinely ignored. Police swoop on small traders who sell VCDs of an Australian television programme on Anwar's trial. More arrests are made, not just of opposition political party supporters but of interest groups, like those objecting to the resiting of the Chinese school in Damansara.

Meanwhile, Mr Sahathevan moved on to Sydney, gave up his Malaysian citizenship, took out Australian, and is a free lance journalist there. He looked into the Vincent Tan connexion there, and came up with a company called Carlovers. And found a can of worms. The Australian stock exchange jumped in to suspend its quotation. The company, Tan Sri Vincent and other directors sued him for libel, getting an injunction against him not under the libel laws but under the fair trading laws. Mr Sahathevan counter-sued for libel. In Australia, the courts would not allow an injunction against journalists, especially in defamation cases. It raised, to put it mildly, a stink. New South Wales state government came in as an interested party when Mr Sahathevan moved to vacate the injunction. That case is about to come to trial. Last week, Tan Sri Vincent's lawyers wrote to Mr Sahathevan's asking for permission to withdraw his case.

Mr Sahathevan investigated into the activities of a companies ultimately controlled by Tan Sri Vincent Tan. He found the company in compliance with Malaysian lackadaisical listing proprieties but not of the Australian Stock Exchange, where the company, Carlovers Carwash, is listed. It resulted in the company being suspended, and Mr Sahathevan sued for defamation by the company, Tan Sri Vincent Tan, and others. Mr Sahathevan returned the compliment with a similar suit against them. They also got an injunction against him writing about them in Malaysia, Australia and elsewhere. But the injunction was against the New South Wales fair trading legislation. Mr Sahathevan appealed, and got the injunction lifted. The decision wrote Tan Sri Vincent Tan into the Australian lawbooks. Mr Justice Levine, who heard the appeal, said the injunction would not have been allowed under the state's defamation laws. So important was this principle that the New South Wales' senior law officer, the solicitor-general no less, and the minister involved in fair trading, intervened.

More serious is the incipient state revolt about federal control. The state mentris besar and chief ministers are anguished over this federal shenanigans in Trengganu. One wanted to know if oil is discovered off his state, federal government would decide how the royalty would be spent. The federal move strengthens state nationalism, a reversion to status quo ante 1955. The state UMNO leaders must go along or be swept aside by other parties prepared to protect state rights against Kuala Lumpur's constitutional encroachments. Dato' Seri Adnan Yaakob saw the writing on the wall earlier than the others. He is not alone. In every state, this federal intrusion encourages the still-incipient state nationalism. As the Pahang mentri besar showed, to remain in office one must show one can challenge the federal authorities. The UMNO vice-president, Tan Sri Mohamed Taib, is right back in centre stage, after his brush with the Australian customs following the unexplained appearance of RM2.4 million in his suitcase.

What confused all this is Canberra's alacritic presumption that it could spearhead the UN peacekeeping forces without doubts raised about its larger intentions. The Australian Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, proved Australian officialdom's insensitivity to the region and its most important neighbour. It was a time to settle scores, which the other saw as an incalculable insult. Australia, whatever its motives, faces a troubling task ahead to restore its shattered bilateral ties with Indonesia, which has broken a defence agreement and now shifts its purchase of beef and wheat to Canada. Southeast Asia itself is horrified at Australia's intentions. It does not matter now that Australia has modified her plans, but her relations with Southeast Asia would also need sensitive diplomatic nurturing from now on. How does the UN peacekeeping forces fare in East Timor? Not well, if the demeanour of the Australian commander, Maj.-Gen. Peter Cosgrove, is any thing to go by. From his early ebullience, he is now seen as a haggard figure on television which suggests the UN presence is more worrisome than the Australian television reports suggest. No soldier has been killed yet. But that does not represent success, as we are led to believe. The worst is yet to come.

Mutiny may be a harsh word, in the circumstances, but shifting alignments, especially by the Penghulu, is not. When the Prime Minister and his ilk excoriate his nemesis, and retract businesses and projects of his cronies, the Penghulu quietly and inexplicably throws a lifeline to He Who Must Be Destroyed At All Cost. While contracts are publicly cancelled from some Anwar-linked companies, others linked more blatantly are given equally lucrative contracts. The Abrar Group were awarded contracts to build four district hospitals -- in Sungei Patani, Kedah; in Ampang, Selangor; in Temerloh, Pahang; and in Setiu, Trengganu. The Sungei Patani hospital contract was taken away and given to consortium of Universal Builders and Bina Darul Aman; in the latter company, a company called Maluri, whose relationship to the Penghulu is not a million miles apart, has a 30 per cent stake. In the Ampang hospital, Abrar had not only started work, but it is built on Abrar land; the government dragged its feet until it promised Abrar the contract provided it dealth with an Australian healthcare company which Peremba, which has the same relationship to the Penghulu as Maluri, was fortuitious in taking control of the Australian company before the offer Abrar could not refuse. In the twists and turns of Bolehland insider antics, Peremba suddenly becomes a prime player when this, and other hospitals, are eventually privatised; it also poses unwelcome competition to the Bin Mahathir-controlled Tongkah Holdings in the hospital privatisation business.

When Malaysia's finances took a nosedive last year, with the stock markets in close pursuit, everything he stood for in his 18 years of leadership lay bare and exposed, with the people he followed him blindly even more so. Instead of rallying them around him as, for instance, President Suharto has done in Indonesia, he uncharacteristically whimpers at his political impotence. He repeated that, disconcertingly for a Malaysian looking for firmness in leadership, to an Australian journalist recently. He retreats into a shell, spouting brave sentences which mean nothing or whimpering disconsolatingly about foreign attacks on him. It is these signs that gives one an assumption, even the local cossetted from bad news as a matter of official policy, that the state is rudderless. The is considerable opposition to him continuing in office. He would have to go sooner than later. But he still has more than an even chance of doing so gracefully with dignity, grace, and respect. Can we, Dato' Seri, have our old prime minister back?

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