Ramblings of Abufaris

I wonder if the police will arrest Mawi like what they did to Anwar Ibrahim before the time is up?

ASMAWI Ani, or better known as Mawi, was in a spot of trouble yesterday.

The singer yesterday failed to turn up at Bukit Aman police headquarters after being ordered to. Mawi was supposed to meet an officer from the public relations department at 1.30pm yesterday to explain a controversial scene in his latest movie, Jin Notti, which featured the singer in police uniform.

In a courtroom scene, the singer was featured with a full beard while in uniform, which police say is against the police code of ethics.

The movie is produced by KRU Films. Mawi claimed yesterday he wasn’t aware of the police order.

“I have been receiving endless calls from reporters and friends but I didn’t answer any of them as I was busy with a TV recording. Later in the evening, I was shocked when informed about the matter,” he said.

Mawi, upon learning about the issue, added that he immediately contacted the director of the movie, Azhari Mohd Zain, and producer, Norman Abdul Halim.

“They met the police officer.

However, I am still willing to co-operate if the police still want me to show up,” Mawi said.

A local online newspaper last night flashed a statement from an officer from the department confirming the singer didn’t turn up at Bukit Aman as scheduled. It was learnt that Mawi and KRU Films were called up for a briefing on the rules and ethics of wearing a police uniform.

The officer was also quoted as saying that the order was only to advise the parties involved and assure them that legal action wouldn’t be taken against them.

On whether he was aware of the uniform ethics, Mawi said he didn’t know.

“I was only an actor in the movie. No one from production told me about the ethics.

I didn’t think anything was wrong,” said Mawi.

GEORGE TOWN: The state government plans to put up street names and road signs in multiple languages at heritage areas here for the benefit of tourists and visitors.

State Local Government, Traffic Management and Environment Committee chairman Chow Kon Yeow said yesterday that the languages would depend on the cultural characteristics of the streets in question.

“There have been requests for road signs in various languages now that George Town has received Unesco recognition as a world heritage site. The state has, in principle, agreed to have signs in Bahasa Malaysia, English, Chinese and Tamil, and maybe even Arabic,” he said.

Chinese signs: Penang residents riding past one of the six new road signs in George Town yesterday. The six signs were put up by a group of Gerakan members on Monday.

Chow noted that the Federal Government had also approved an allocation to put up signboards in various languages around George Town.

On the six street signs put up by several Gerakan members, led by former Penang Municipal Council councillor Dr Thor Teong Ghee, Chow said he had instructed the council to give notice to the group to remove them.

“The council will advise them to take down the signs themselves, unlike in the past when the council under the previous administration used to pull down signs put up by the DAP within two hours,” said Chow.

On Monday, Dr Thor and six others put up the road signs in Chinese to remind the DAP that it had to keep its word to come up with such road signs now that the party was helming the state. The six signs were for Beach Street, Burmah Road, Macalister Road, Carnarvon Street, Chulia Street and Jalan C.Y. Choy.

Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng said there was no reason for anyone to politicise the issue as this was the people’s aspiration. He likened the need to have multilingual road signs to the multilingual announcements at airports which were a necessity.

However, Tanjung Umno Youth division chief Shaharrudin Hassan urged the local government and government agencies to only allow road signs in the national language.

“If the Malays can compromise with not having road signs in Jawi or Arabic, we do not see why the other races cannot practise a similar thing,” he said.

When contacted, Dr Thor said he would wait for the council’s notice, but hoped that the signs could remain until the council put up its own.

Everyone with the right mind would condemn the way the Government handles the Anwar Ibrahim’s case. How many times have the government mistray against Anwar? I just could’t accept when they broke their promise by arresting Anwar before the time given expires.

Saturday, 19 July 2008 12:34 zen

Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat, the Menteri Besar of Kelantan hit out at the media excessively covering the sodomy allegations made by Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan against Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, the Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) de facto leader and that it has turned into shaming him and querying that the arrest of Anwar made front page headlines while his release were not. He said “Why must the media take pride in shaming him? Anwar is a human being and not an angel or devil. He is a Malay Muslim so I asked why must there be a concerted effort to shame him in the front pages of the media. It is like we are passengers in a luxurious car which has a fantastic brake system but the driver is drunk. The driver may not be drunk on alcohol but drunk with power and position. It would be pointless as the driver would drive us to hell instead,”

KUALA LUMPUR: Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim blamed Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak for the sodomy allegation, saying that it was an attempt to derail Pakatan Rakyat’s move to take over the Government.

Anwar who claimed he would be Prime Minister by Sept 16 by way of a by-election and mass crossovers by Barisan MPs, said it looks like the process had run into a temporary setback.

“Now, I have to wait for a while for it not to be affected by the case. But I remain committed and we will proceed,” he told a press conference yesterday.

Najib is due to take over as Prime Minister in June 2010 under a transition programme agreed to by Umno.

On Umno and PAS talks, the PKR de facto leader said this was something normal.

“They are prepared to meet and discuss with anyone. This is consistent with my position and Pakatan Rakyat’s position,” he said, adding he had been in touch with PAS leaders and president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang.

He said the media reports about the talks were misleading.

Anwar stressed that ties among PKR, DAP and PAS “is perfect and extremely good.”

He also said he was touched by the support shown by parties’ leaders towards him.

“Pakatan Rakyat remains strong,” he said.