At present, one in two MPs are in the federal government – as ministers, deputy ministers and parliametary secretaries. There are about 90 MPs in government. He wants to reduce that. He also wants to sack, it is rumoured, six cabinet ministers, all of whom had gone to Mecca so that they would not be. Even Tun Mahathir Mohamed, lord of all he surveyed, could not prune it, and his cabinet reshuffles in 22 years of office, was consequential. Pak Lah is stopped in his tracks. He is confused. He son-in-law has made it clear that his men must hold cabinet posts. There is already talk that Pak Lah is not his own man. He informed the cabinet yesterday he has signed a treaty with Japan, which gives Japan most favoured nation status and allows that country to import tax free its cars. In return, Malaysia will get tax free status in Japan for fruits they do not want. The United States has been pushing Malaysia to sign this treaty for a while – Tun Mahathir refused, because it was to Malaysia's disadvantage. It now wants Malaysia to support Australia and New Zealand as members of ASEAN. Pak Lah must explain why he only informed, and not discussed with, his cabinet about the agreement with Japan.

But both will be prostitutes of globalisationt, either as one or as two. The globalisation is to ensure the Western nations' control of the world. There is the downside, for which no serious consideration is made. Globalisation, in other words, is another form of colonialism. But globalisation has its naysayers. Osama bin Laden, Al-Qaeda, Saddam Hussein and others like them do not agree with globalisation as it is practiced now. Education has make people think, and people around the world see globalisation as one in which they could benefit. The United States is tearing its hair on jobs lost because of it. But it was the United States that set the trend of having its manufacturing facilities in the regions of the world where manufacturing costs are cheap. IBM computers will soon be Chinese. The nether regions of the world are becoming educated, and see why they cannot benefit from globalisation in its stated form, not as its prostitutes. They were manufacturing countries before globalisation. China in the 21st century is Japan in the 20th. The West is trying its best to stop it. But it cannot. China has forced prices down. It had upset prices worldwide, by offering good products at a cheaper price. Parker now has a manufacturing unit in China and sells pens for RM25 that would have cost ten times more if China was not a manufacturing country. The United States is worried that globalisation would go away from its control, politically and economically. But this problem is not with the prostitutes. They will provide the services to whoever is dominant.

The insurgency is Sunni-based. It gets help from other Sunnis as the United States and Britain widens its arc of support by getting countries to join it. Al Qaeda is involved. Why should it not when Australia and Japan is involved? It gets new recruits as the US and UK gets other countries to join it in this war on terror. The US army targets in Iraq are Sunni centres. Even Tal Afar is Sunni, though the majority in that town is Turkmen. Mosul, in the north and an oil town, is basically in guerilla hands. The insurgency in Iraq also hits at oil pipelines and facilities deliberately, denying the US and the Iraqi government they set up use of oil. In the 1990s, Saddam Hussein (as proxy for the US) fought a war with Ayatollah Khomeini, but each were careful not to destroy the other's oil facilities. The war destroyed only the area where it was fought. Iran and Iraq, as states, could do that. But such an option was not available in Iraq when the US reduced it to a rubble. Iraq is now a fourth world state. The Sunnis now are determined it should be under a regime that is set up by the Americans. The anger is on both sides, and a mutually- agreed-destruction is not possible now. The US has lost the initiative in asking Sunnis not to touch the oil facilities. So, the insurgency has two aims: one, to drive the invader out; or, as now, make it more expensive to him to get out, and two, to make it impossible for the Shia or the Kurd to take his place. The US-led coalition has destroyed Iraq, and dismantled its bureaucracy. The US plans to federalise Iraq makes it another reason for the Sunni insurgency to continue unabated.

Tun Mahathir would have lost if Dato' Seri Anwar is brought into UMNO. But would Dato' Seri Anwar be acceptable as deputy prime minister, for he is a more dangerous person to Pak Lah than the present deputy prime minister. Pak Lah sleeps at meetings. This is well known. And he depends on his son-in-law to keep him awake. Tun Mahathir has been kept waiting for a formal meeting with Pak Lah, because the latter was sleeping in his house. Sources close to Tun Mahathir say that he has been kept waiting at the Prime Minister's office by as much as one hour. But Pak Lah is not home free. In the UMNO elections in 2007, Pak Lah could be challenged by a warlord, from Johore. The challenger may not win, but like Tun Hussein Onn, in 1978, who was forced to resign for the deputy prime minister three years later, Pak Lah may be forced to as well. If the warlord from Johore wins the election, then Pak Lah would have to resign. Though he had said that those in his cabinet and government need not resign if they had lost the party elections. He is finding creative ways for them to remain in office, arguing that those in his cabinet and government have taken office before the Yang Dipertuan Agung, and that supercedes any party election. But this is not why he would not reshuffle his cabinet and government. He is awaiting inspiration. The real reason why he does not reshuffle his cabinet is that those he drops would walk to his opposition. Those in his cabinet are UMNO warlords from the states. And he would not behave as boldly as Junichiro Koizumi in calling for general elections for the upper and lower House in Japan when the warlords opposed him plan to privatise the Post Office. But he spoiled his chances by promising to retire next year. The UMNO president is not as beholden now to the warlords, but he is afraid the warlords he drops would go in opposition to him. And that to him is not a good thing.

The Asian and African power has to fight their way into the Western scheme of things. They find the West acts as a closed shop, and they have to fight their way through. Japan sold its cars around, against the Western car makers, and sold better cars cheaper, until today it is a member of the Western car manufacturers. They begain their effort to be recognised in the 1960s. China fights its way to be accepted as an industialiased nation, as Japan did in the 1960s, but it will win the fight. The West has changed its tactics, and are in China. All the major car manufacturers are in China. But China is an industrial power in its own right. IBM computers will now be made and sold by the Chinese. IBM in the US has increased its profits be having their computers made in Taiwan and in China, and how sold the computer division to the Chinese. China has offered to sell Proton cars at 40 per cent of its manufacturing value, but this was vetoed by the Proton board, all Western oriented, who would rather manufacture it locally or get money for not manufacturing it. But it will soon mean that Malaysia will not have a motor car industry. The Proton car was set up to allow the Malay to be confident with tools and heavy machinery, but it was the bosses who made money out of buying the parts from Malaysian Chinese foundries set up for the purpose. Now these foundries would make spare parts for the European cars. If you are a Western lackey, like Thailand, then you get the immediate benefits of it. Thailand has a motor manufacturing industry of western countries, and makes a good living out of it.

The cabinet in Malaysia is a conglomeration of warlords, like the Liberal Democratic Party in Japan, and dismissing a warlord from the cabinet means the prime minister has one enemy more to contend. In Japan, calling an election is easier than confronting a warlord, as Mr Junichiro Koizumi proves. In Malaysia, the prime minister would rather than sack a warlord for fear of more opposition to him at the UMNO general assembly elections. So, corrupt cabinet ministers stay on. Datin Rafidah Aziz has ordered the mainsream media and TV stations to cut off coverage, as Tan Sri Isa had done before him, and the issue is no more covered. But warlords outside the cabinet but in parliament wants her to explain the mess. She hopes the matter has died down, and the Malaysian public, given only one side of the equation at any one time on matters affecting their lives end up like sheep, now get to hear the other side of the story, and do want to hear her side of the story. The issue will not go way.

IN THE LATE 1930s, the then governor of Singapore, Sir Shenton Thomas, would drop in at the Raffles Hotel barber shop to have his hair trimmed by the popular Japanese owner, who was so discreet and obsequious that he was regarded a harmless fellow. Caution was thrown to the winds, and talk flowed freely when senior officials met there every month. Along Jalan Ibrahim, Johore Bahru, in the 1930s, the Five Cent Store occupied the spot where the K. Abdul Wahab news agent, stationers and general merchants now does. Every item in the store cost five cents and less. The amiable Japanese owner attracted much custom from the British civil servants and estate managers, Malay aristocracy, Chinese and Indian business men, and it became a frequent meeting place for all who mattered in pre-war Johore society. Even Sultan Ibrahim would on occasion drop in.

The government cannot help, says the deputy prime minister, Najib Razak, as it is poor. But not so poor to buy immediately, as he announced earlier, a tsunami-detection system from Japan that, if the past is any guide, would be useless the moment it is commissioned. An impressive network of systems exist to cater for any disaster, but it ceases to function when and where it is most wanted. Each is well-equipped but badly maintained and of no conceivable use when disaster strikes.

TO MARK THE PRIME Minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's first year in office, the mainstream newspapers bend over backwards to praise him with banal platitudes when it should be taking a critical look at his stewardship. The Star, to mark the event, asked its readers to guess what his favourite likes are, a sort of political reality show. We now know, why we know not, that his favourite role model is Tun Abdul Razak; his favourite historical Malaysian personality, Tengku Abdul Rahman; his favourite drink, warm water ('air suam'); his favourite food, rice porridge; his favourite snack, keropok; his favourite colour, blue; his favourite song, Bahtera Malaysia; his favourite movie, My Fair Lady; his favourite ice cream flavour, vanilla; his favourite holiday destination, Japan. The 8,000 readers who responded guessed right half his choices. What is that meant to prove?

What went wrong, in Iraq and Vietnam, is this belief that an alien model can be force-fed on a country by conquest. It worked in Japan after World War Two because it had had elections for decades, and its culture demanded that the loser in a war is at the mercy of the winner. But this would not work elsewhere, least of all in ancient civilisations with different value systems. Washington and other Western nations believed, wrongly, it could, and continues to pay the price. Mr Vladimir Putin, only the latest of autocratic Russian rulers, finds that democracy challenges the iron control he and his predecessors were accustomed to. The emerging Russian democracy faded as the realities of control had to be faced. And so it is, and would be, in Iraq, and elsewhere in the Middle East, where control, for all its democratic appearance, is still rooted in the iron fist, with or without the velvet glove.

It is this self-confidence that frightens UMNO, which is beleaguered no matter what he does: in UMNO or out of it, he threatens UMNO and its stalwarts, most of whom had moved ahead because he was in jail. Now that he is back, the nightmares begin. Besides Pak Lah and Dato' Seri Najib, others like Dato' Seri Hishamuddin Hussein could find their political careers cut off mid-stream. It is the worse that he postpones what he would until after his returns from his surgery overseas. That he says something is enough to frighten; that he does not gives them nightmares. The government mishandled Dato' Seri Anwar, but with its penchant for half-measures, did not see it through. It wanted to destroy Dato' Seri Anwar once and for all, but somewhere along the line, it believed it had in the arrogant belief that he in prison cannot hit back. He did. it now wishes it would rather face the natural disasters that countries like Japan and the United States than Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

This is not corruption, you understand. It is optimum asset management. Their success in the stock market is phenomenal. Their innate ability to strike top prizes in the lottery and in games of chance and on the gaming tables in casinos the world over is phenomenal. In every other country, when money is spent without parliamentary or auditing controls, it is stolen hand over fist. It does not matter where it is: the United States, Zimbabwe, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, India, China, Japan.

But nuclear peace will come when more countries have nuclear weapons so that it would not be used unilaterally. Let us not forget the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Japan, not Germany, to tell the Soviet Union it has the atom bomb. Would it have used it if the Soviet Union had it too at the time? I doubt it. So now. The US can use depleted uranium cased shells in Iraq, because Iraq and its backers do not have the wherewithal to create problems for US troops in other hotspots. Why should Malaysia then be defensive about its interest in acquiring nuclear technology? The difficulty is that Malaysia went into it piece-meal, piggybacking on others in secret, denying it when found out, and surrounds itself in confusion. When there is only hegemon, all countries shiver when Washington targets it. No one stands up to question it. One who did was Tun Mahathir Mohamed. But he is retired. And he did not leave his thoughts behind as policy. So Pak Lah is left clueless and caught even more flatfooted because his son's company is involved. Malaysia is caught in this conundrum because it looks to the US to act the Islamic fundamentalists in the country so the National Front (BN) government can continue in power. It runs with the hounds and, sometimes, with the hares.

This charging of Tan Sir Eric for corruption is a blip on the screen, with nothing resolved and the problems arising out of proportion into an unresolvable mess. No one in Government admits to what Perwaja Steel would eventually cost it. But in once sense, it was doomed from the start. The Indian steel consultants, Mr M.N. Dastur & Co, was brought in to review the plans when the original joint venture between the Malaysian government and Nippon Seel Corporation of Japan fell apart. But Perwaja Steel rejected most of its recommendations, and the company was set for the mess it became. Tan Sri Eric Chia's role in it ended in 1996. It was handed over to two crony entrenpreneurs, one of whom saw it as a threat to his own steel operations and went into it to stymie it, the other saw it as an opportunity to be known as a steel man. Not the best of intentions to rescue a steel company. It does not surprise Perwaja Steel's subsequent inexorable descent into unrepayable debt.

Dr Sun Yat-sen wanted to overthrow the Chinese Empire. If he had been caught in any other country, even Malaysia, where he lived for years, he would have been sent back to China and certain death. The British would have happily allowed it. The view of governments at those it want destroyed is: "He is ours. We can do what we like with him. No one should question it. We want him dead. We will decide how. The others should not object. Let us do our dirty work, however messy." To mollify public opinion, he will face trial in what is a kangaroo court, and convicted. It happened to Dato' Seri Anwar. It happened in the victors' courts in Europe and Japan, after World War II. It would happen now in Iraq. The US would not have an easy passage. For one, the US invasion is illegal, as the German invasion of Poland in 1939 was. If Berlin could be accountable for that when the tables turned, and its architects hanged, so could Washington. President Bush said yesterday (17 December 2003) that nothing short of death is good for Mr Saddam. The arguments about the trial reminds me of vultures hovering over a body, waiting to pick it clean.

Mr Husam thinks this money is not Al-Qaeda funds but the illgotten gains of UMNO bigwigs in search of a golden parachute in foreign countries. He is wrong. Nor is it Al Qaeda money as SBS alleges. The Saudi business man, however rich he is, deals with people he is comfortable with - and would usually prefer a Lebanese or a South Asian. By no stretch of imagination could Dr Adrian Ong, the Malaysian expatriate in Sydney, be mistaken as a South Asian. It is more likely these funds, if it exists, came from Far East sources - possibly from Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong,Vietnam, China. Does this matter if the aim is to destroy he who must be destroyed by any means? So the Malaysian end of this elaborate conspiracy saw it an opportunity to put a nail in the political coffin of Dato' Seri Anwar. It was not thought through, and now haunts instead Pak Lah, UMNO and all who wants Dato' Seri Anwar out of their hair.

Normally what Dr Mahathir wants goes. But these are not normal times. He retires in three months. His successor, Pak Lah, could be around for five years and more. Slowly the Old Man's powers are clipped. The home ministry is now under Pak Lah's control. When Dr Mahathir went on his visit to Ukraine last week, 30 loyalists accompanied him; When Pak Lah visited Japan recently, 300, including several Mahathir loyalists, went along. That is the way of the world. What Pak Lah wants Pak Lah gets. What about justice? What about it? Meanwhile, Dato' Seri Ong will be allowed to do as he pleases for what put lesser beings in jail, and Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim will rot in jail for which lesser politicians would go scot free.

Did he? The news report today (NST, 15 July 2003) quotes him as saying the MCA "sought the opinion of the BN leadership", including Dr Mahathir. Only Dr Mahathir it seems agreed with the lifting. If there had been others who agreed, he would have named them. He did not. He continues: "I briefed Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi this morning. He is agreeable to what the MCA is doing." Is this why Pak Lah, on his return from Japan, told reporters the MCA must follow the rules. Why, I wonder, did he say that when Dato' Seri Ong and MCA had indeed followed the rules? Has Pak Lah the same amnesia that occasionally afflicts Dr Mahathir at critical moments? Is Pak Lah lying? Is Tan Sri Koh?

THE MCA PRESIDENTIAL COUNCIL lifted the suspension of two National Front (BN) state assemblymen from Penang, on its own bat, without consulting the BN in the state and the centre. The Penang BN chief, Tan Sri Koh Tsu Koon, said the suspension stands. "We were not informed or consulted and I was caught by surprise when Penang Gerakan leaders called me in Japan on Thursday night after the suspension was lifted," he said. The MCA could lift the suspension but the BN supreme council should before they would be allowed on the government benches. Until then, the pair stays out. It was the BN supreme council which suspended them, only the BN supreme council can now reinstate them.

The question is why. What good is it to UMNO? UMNO is at the edge of destruction for its role in destroying the KeADILan eminence grise and once UMNO's deputy president and Malaysia's deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim. UMNO could hold the ramparts for five years but cannot for much longer. For UMNO to survive, Dato' Seri Anwar must be out of jail with a free pardon and allowed to return to active political life. It is not I who say this but an UMNO leader of high standing with a clear mind to call a spade a spade. He says UMNO is in such shambles that Malaysians would not know, let along remember, what UMNO is in 2020, the year when, so we are led to believe, Malaysia would be mistaken for Japan or Germany.

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