沈老逝世

二零零九年二月六日 凌晨十二时二十七分

（马六甲5日讯）受人敬仰的我国华教斗士拿督沈慕羽局绅，于今晚9时15分在家中安详逝世，享年96岁。

沈老是于日前入住马六甲爱极乐班台医院休养。沈慕羽入院期间，槟城首席部长林冠英及华总总会长丹斯里林玉唐等人，亦前往医院探望老人家。

由于身体健康状况不见理想，院方即在老人家的本身意愿下，让他于今日傍晚返回本身位于甲市区怡力路的住家，其到家后不久即过世。

根据家属透露，沈老乃安详逝世，其子孙亦陪伴在旁。

由于沈老乃华社闻人，再加上拥有许多子孙及亲戚，因此丧府将于明日共商讨论后，才决定确实的出殡日期。

沈慕羽是于去年12月26日因肺部积水而入住医院疗养，直至新年前夕才获准出院回家过年，接着又于农历初九凌晨再度入院。

尽管沈老于新年前夕出院，可是却碍于身体衰弱，而没有如往年般出席沈志明家族会的新春大团拜，沈志明家族大家长拿督沈慕羽由于出院后仍卧在病榻休养，除夕夜并没有和家人一起围着吃团年饭，也没有出席大年初一在东街纳祖屋志明堂举办的家族新春大团拜。

不过，沈老初一在精神较好时，穿上红色唐装，坐在怡力住家正厅，按照数十年来的传统，让上门的沈氏家族成员向他跪拜与祝贺新年。

沈老的儿子沈墨义表示，他本身从小到大，这是父亲首次没有和家人一起吃团年饭。

依照惯例，沈老的子孙除夕夜都齐聚在他怡力的住家，和沈老一同吃团圆饭，然后听他老人家训话。

96岁高龄的沈老于去年12月26日因为身体不适入院，一度入住加护病房，过后情况好转转入普通病房，于1月21日出院回家休养，与家人一同过农历新年。

Hundreds sign petition

IPOH: Hundreds of people turned up at the Jelapang market here to sign a petition demanding their assemblyman Hee Yit Foong resign as their elected representative.

Neither the scorching heat or the lack of parking spaces kept them away from ensuring they got the message through to Hee that she was no longer wanted.

Within 90 minutes, 720 signatures were collected from the time the signature campaign started at 9.30am yesterday.

Perak DAP organising secretary Thomas Su Keong Siong said the petition would be handed over to the DAP-turned-Independent assemblyman.

“If she does not want to accept the petition then we will hand it over to her parents at their home in Kanthan, Chemor,” he said.

DAP supports Anwar as Pakatan leader: Guan Eng

KUALA LUMPUR: The DAP will continue to support Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim as the opposition leader, its secretary-general Lim Guan Eng said.

He said Anwar, the PKR de facto leader, would remain as Pakatan Rakyat leader and as the oppostion leader as agreed to by Pakatan party leaders.

“He will remain, as no single leader has ever questioned this during internal meetings, whether at the highest level or otherwise,” he said in a statement here Monday.

He said Pakatan had endorsed a position that no individual party policy could be regarded a policy for the entire alliance unless it was approved by all three parties.

He also appealed to DAP chairman Karpal Singh to use internal party channels if he wished to change policies within Pakatan, instead of using the media. On Sunday, Karpal had told a news conference that Anwar was not fit to lead Pakatan and that he had been “nothing but trouble” for the opposition alliance.

His remarks came in the wake of Pakatan losing the Perak state government to the Barisan Nasional on Friday, which Karpal blamed on Anwar for trying to seek defectors from Barisan to shore up Pakatan. -- Bernama

Raja Petra trial: ‘Najib not involved’

PETALING JAYA: A chief investigator repeatedly denied that Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak was involved in the killing of Mongolian translator Altantuya Shaariibuu when the counsel for Malaysia Today Raja Petra Raja Kamarudin tried to link the Deputy Prime Minister to the murder.

The former ISA detainee attempted this at his sedition trial Tuesday through his counsel Gobind Singh Deo during the cross-examination of the chief investigator, Supt Gan Tack Guan.

Supt Gan, 50, who is Interpol’s National Centre Bureau assistant director based at Bukit Aman, said a statement was not taken from Najib as he was not involved in Altantuya’s murder.

When pressed further, he said Najib was an important witness.

“It is my opinion that every witness is important. We have seen his connections. Najib is not involved in this case,” said Supt Gan, who is also a complainant in the sedition trial.

When asked if it was not important to record a statement from Najib when he was considered an important witness, Supt Gan claimed Najib had been slandered.

When asked how he knew Najib was not involved in the murder although the Deputy Prime Minister was among four people implicated in Altantuya’s murder, Supt Gan said he had the chance to study the investigation papers.

“I am the supervisor for the investigations of the Altantuya case. I had a team of investigators to assist (investigating officer) Asst Supt Tonny Lunggan for the case. Investigations revealed that Najib is not involved,” he testified at a Sessions Court here.

Raja Petra had on May 6 last year claimed trial to publishing a seditious article on the news portal on April 25.

The 59-year-old is accused of publishing the article Let’s send the Altantuya murderers to hell on the website www.malaysia-today.net. The article is alleged to have contained nine paragraphs of seditious words.

The blogger is said to have committed the offence at his house on Jalan BRP 5/5 in Bukit Rahman Putra, Sungai Buloh, that day.

When Gobind Singh suggested that there was a reason for Gan not to question Najib as the police knew that Najib was involved in Altantuya’s murder and the police had no guts to reveal this in their investigations, Gan disagreed.

He denied that he was not in the position to substantiate his police report against Raja Petra.

“Actually I lodged a police report (against Raja Petra) as certain contents of the article were simply fabricated,” he said.

To a question, he said he did not underline the paragraphs of the alleged seditious article.

He disagreed to a suggestion that it was not his decision to lodge a police report against Raja Petra and that it was a politically motivated decision to do so.

Supt Gan also admitted that three accused persons in the Altantuya murder trial had denied killing her.

He agreed that police investigations had revealed that two policemen implicated in her murder trial at Shah Alam High Court had murdered Altantuya.

He agreed that one area of police investigations was that the two policemen had been paid to murder her.

He disagreed that there were several paragraphs in the seditious article which were fair comment and factual.

When asked that Altantuya could be the seventh victim in light of Razak’s affidavit which was affirmed on Jan 4, 2007, he agreed.

He said he had read Razak’s affidavit but did not investigate its contents.

The hearing before Sessions Court judge Rozina Ayob will continue on Thursday.

Frustration for survivors as bushfires smoulder

Wildfires continue to smoulder across large sections of bushland in southeast Australia, as rescue officials in the state of Victoria attempt to offer solace to hundreds burned out of their homes. Frustration brews as many residents are prevented from returning to their homes, or what was left of them, because of safety fears.

Ash rains down on Tokyo as volcano erupts

TOKYO - A volcano near Tokyo erupted Monday, shooting up billowing smoke and showering parts of the capital with a fine ash that sent some city residents to the car wash and left others puzzled over the white powder they initially mistook for snow.

Mount Asama erupted in the early hours of Monday, belching out a plume that rose about a mile high, Japan's Meteorological Agency said.

There were no reports of injuries or damage from the eruption of the volcano, 90 miles northwest of Tokyo. It last erupted in August, 2008, causing no major damage.

Chunks of rock from the explosion were found about 3,300 feet away from the volcano. Ash was detected over a wide area, including central Tokyo and as far as eastern Chiba.

'Mysterious white powder'
In Tokyo's western district of Fussa, the local government office was flooded with calls from residents asking about "the mysterious white powder" falling from the sky and fire departments fielded calls from people afraid the ash was from a nearby blaze.

In the town of Karuizawa, southeast of the volcano, the ash was thick enough to obscure road markings in some areas, town official Noboru Yanagishi said.

"Some people said they heard a strange noise in the morning when the eruption occurred," he said.

The eruption was not big enough to disrupt daily life near the volcano, though many people awoke to find their cars covered in a fine layer of powder. National broadcaster NHK showed people in Tokyo lining up to get their cars washed or wiping the ash from their windows, with some drivers saying they first thought it was snow.

In Tachikawa, a district in northwestern Tokyo, some farming areas were coated with ash.

"Because it's February and not harvesting season, there was no real damage to any crops," said Shoichi Matsumoto, a local official.

For many, business as usual
In Tsumagoi, a small town on the volcano with ski resorts and hot spring baths, residents went about their business as usual. Travelers planning vacations to the area had called to inquire, but no one canceled, said Masaru Yoshida, a spokesman for the local tourist association.

"The wind has blown the ash to the other side of the mountain," he said. "It's a clear day so you can see some smoke, but not as much as we've had in the past."

The $115b that got away

FREE insulation for 2.7 million homes will be included in the Government's second economic stimulus package to be announced this week. The package will be be presented as a mini-budget after Kevin Rudd revealed yesterday that forecast tax revenues would plunge by $115 billion over four years.

An update of the state of the rapidly deteriorating economy was needed now and could not wait for the budget in May. The Prime Minister also said the Government would issue Commonwealth bonds to service a series of budget deficits for this and the next few years, making it the first new net borrowings by a government since 1996.

The free insulation will fund work on 2.5 million owner-occupied homes and 500,000 rental properties. It will be available to anyone who needs it and will be badged as an instant job creator and economic stimulus - with the long-term benefits of reducing energy bills by $200 a year and cutting greenhouse gases by 49.4 million tonnes by 2020.

The $115 billion budget shortfall means that since November, when tax revenues were forecast to fall by $40 billion, another $75 billion is expected to be lost.

"Six of Australia's top 10 trading partners are now in recession and that list grows," Mr Rudd said.

He said China's slowdown was a significant factor in the revenue shortfall which comprised $90 billion in company and capital gains taxes, $13 billion in income tax due to forecast lost jobs, $2 billion in miscellaneous taxes and $10 billion in GST.

The states, which receive all GST revenue, will be consoled by billions of dollars in quick-start infrastructure projects to be included in this week's stimulus package. Mr Rudd unveiled more detail on the parlous state of the economy before today's meeting of the Reserve Bank, clearing the way for a stimulatory rate cut of at least 1 percentage point.

The theme of the mini-budget will be jobs and nation building. Other measures will include wage subsidies to keep people in work.

It will not include tax cuts, despite constant speculation and Opposition demands. The infrastructure projects will be those that could begin quickly and are defined as "shovel ready".

Large projects that have a long lag time and no instant economic benefit, such as the west metro the NSW Government wants built, are subject to the separate Infrastructure Australia process that will not be completed until March.

The revised budget figures will show the $5.4 billion surplus forecast in November will be a deficit, as will the surpluses forecast for the next three years. The 2 per cent growth forecast for this year will be reduced to just above zero.

A recession involves two successive quarters of negative growth but Mr Rudd said yesterday the Government would "move heaven and earth to try and keep growth positive".

Defending the deficit, Mr Rudd said the alternative was cutting "spending on education, health or even defence".

He maintained that plans to reform the payments for the nation's 3.5 million pensioners in the budget would go ahead. The Treasurer, Wayne Swan, said savings would be found to accommodate the cost.

The Opposition Leader, Malcolm Turnbull, said the first stimulus package was a dud but Mr Rudd said unemployment for the December quarter would have been a lot worse without it. The Finance Minister, Lindsay Tanner, said restoring economic growth was the best way to return the budget to surplus.

For full details on interest rates, see smh.com.au at 2.30pm.