The Most Romantic Dinner in the World

This is possibly the most romantic dinner in the world that i have ever come across. This dinner was hosted by a 29 year old Malaysian young man called Low Taek Jho (or more commonly known as Jho Low). It was said to be a dinner for a wedding proposal to Taiwanese singer, Elva Hsiao (萧亚轩), aged 33. You must watch the video to feel it. Looking at some pictures are just not good enough. It is only a 5 minute video. You wont regret watching it.

The dinner was held at a private beach of Atlantis Hotel, Dubai. You can see that the dinner was exclusive, only both of them were at the dinner.

Elva is a well known female artist in Taiwan releasing quite a few hit songs in Taiwan over the years. Whether there was a marriage proposal or not, she must have felt lucky to be treated with a 1 million British pound or RM5 million dinner by Jho Low. Just one dinner, k. Not a diamond that can last forever.

Free flow Cristal champagne all paid for by Jho Low

Looking at the way Jho Low spends money, one can only guess that he is a billionaire. He became famous in Malaysia and possibly in the world for spending a staggering 3.5 million Euros or RM14 million to buy gigantic bottles of Cristal champagne for Paris Hilton during a night in St Tropez, France. Apparently Jho Low decided to splash out on the champagne on Paris Hilton after the socialite had come face-to-face with her ex Doug Reindhart who was in the same club as them. According to club revellers Doug tried to compete with Jho Low by buying four gigantic bottles of Cristal but that was no match for this Malaysian man who then went onto buy the club’s entire supply of Cristal. Jho Low also bought more than 40 bottles of Cristal champagne in Lindsay Lohan's 23rd birthday at the Angel Ball after-party at 1Oak, New York. He is reported to be flying around the world in private jets and very close  to reality show star, Kim Kardashian.  Now the saying is that 'one never have a champagne buying fight with Jho Low, you will lose'. Despite a born Penangite, Jho Low does not seem to carry the typical Penangite traits of being down-to-earth and thrifty. Jho Low is reported to have used Malaysian government owned company's money to buy a white Ferrari for Kim Kardashian.

Jho Low and Paris Hilton

Jho Low and Paris Hilton

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Mr Low is the youngest son of Datuk Larry Low, a former shareholder and director of MWE Holdings Bhd, which currently has a market capitalisation of RM400 million. Jho Low is made a popular household name in Malaysia by the Star newspapers in 2010. The newspapers featured him on front page and run exclusive articles on him. Not an opportunity that an average 28 year old Malaysian man could usually get. In the articles, no opinions or comments of his friends, relatives or school mates were published. The Star summed up Jho Low's success formula as 'Right time, Right place, Right people'. His formula is in marked contrast to the richest people in this world like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Warren Buffets, world's greatest fund manager and investor, talked about hard work and being thrifty. Bill Gates created personal computers for almost every households. Steve Jobs made the very user-friendly iPod, probably the most intuitively fun to use iPhone and iPad. Each of them has many years of strong and proven track record in providing goods and services. Of course, they made plenty of money in between.

'Right time, Right place, Right people' formula sounds more suited for connection business? This formula may be required in instance where the bidder of contract may not qualify for the tender criteria. It was reported that George Kent, a listed company with current market capitalisation of RM230 million, was leading a consortium and awarded RM1 billion contract to extend Ampang LRT. George Kent was the highest price bidder, and not the lowest, of the tender. Owner of George Kent is mentioned to be the golf buddy of the Malaysian Prime Minister. Recently, it is reported that two companies that failed the tender criteria were awarded with the largest government quotas to supply paddy seeds to Malaysian farmers. The Agriculture Minister, Noh Omar, who approved the tender awards insisted that the criteria were met, despite it was Ministry of Finance which highlighted the discrepancy in tender criteria fulfilment.

Jho Low is apparently very close to wealthy personalities in Middle East and manage their money. He has created a few billion US dollar funds since he was 20 years old. As a money manager, Jho is definitely very successful. His stature should be quite close to Warren Buffet. It is a matter of time that international publishers will seek to write books about Jho Low.

Logically speaking, if I am an investor of Jho Low' funds, I am probably worried about my money left with him, when I see the way he spends his money. I give him benefits of doubt that the money spent was all his. He must be a billionaire and earns a very good income. Notwithstanding, I will be curious whether he is making enough money for the funds or if he is making more money for himself. I should be scrutinizing very closely the capital invested and income generated by the fund where my money is. It is intriguing for him  to tell the Star that his Arab friends where the ones who spent the money in those parties. I stand to be corrected but I neither see any ethnic Arabian  in his dinner with Elva, nor any mention of Arabian names in many of the news with regards to his parties with Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan.

Jho Low is a director and group adviser of UBG Bhd, a listed company reported to be owned by family of Sarawak chief minister, Abdul Taib Mahmud. He is also rumored to be in control of 1 Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB), a government entity, that was established to drive strategic initiatives for long-term economic development for the country by forging global partnerships and promoting foreign direct investment. 1MDB raised RM5 billion under a guarantee of Malaysian federal government in 2009.

Hypothetically, as long as Jho Low is spending his own money, his investors should be happy. If he spends his investors' money indirectly by diverting some return from his investors' fund, his investors may not be too happy. If he is spending directly or indirectly some other people's money which may or may not be related to government money, he may cause many people to be unhappy in Malaysia. Jho Low is enjoying high profile and flamboyant  lifestyle. He has to make extremely good income by ordinary Malaysian standards. After all, this is a country where 80% of the households are making less than RM3,000 per month income.

Come to think of it. Malaysian Prime Minister, Najib Razak should not be somewhat selfish and keep Jho Low's roles to only 1MDB and development of Razak Exchange in Sungai Besi, Kuala Lumpur that was previously military base of the country. Razak Exchange is named after the Prime Minister's father and is Najib's pet project. Instead, he should make sure that Jho Low manages all the important large funds for the people of Malaysia. This is where Jho Low's forte is. PNB is a good place for him to start with. He can help to uplift the income level of Malaysians who subscribe to the funds by increasing the return on investment of those funds. We cannot possibly be a developed country by 2020 when 80% of our households are still earning less than RM3,000 a month. Can we?

A few lovely picture of the romantic dinner at a private beach of Atlantis Hotel, Dubai.

Oldest Woman in World from Malaysia

The Sun newspaper published the above front page news on 6 March 2014, but failed to check with Election Commission on the actual oldest woman in the world,  a Malaysian by the name of Wong Kwan Moy. Read the below to find out the details.
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It was not that long ago that our newspapers published the death of Malaysia's oldest man, Abdul Rahman Abu Bakar or Pak Man, at the age of 117. While we felt happy that he was the oldest man in Malaysia, we felt sad that he had left us on 9 September 2012. The oldest woman in Malaysia, Labkura Khetani, passed away some time earlier this year on 17 March 2012. She was 105 year old. There was a further news of a living oldest woman in Malaysia by the name of Che Sapiah believed to be 115 years old but her age could not be confirmed since her identity card stated that she was born in 1924, recording her age at only 88.

All these exciting news of oldest persons in Malaysia were published in our main stream newspapers. Rightly so, we should cherish their health and age. What puzzle me is that our main stream newspapers have completely ignored our other even older persons in Malaysia on record.

For instance, Wong Kwan Moy who stays in Setiawangsa, Kuala Lumpur. Her age is now 159 and she is turning 160 on 23 August next year. She may well be the oldest person in the world! Wong Kwan Moy was born in 1853. I wish to question our main stream media why they have somehow ignored or neglected her presence. This has resulted in an unintended favouratism. I have screen shot of her identity to prove her age. She is a voter in Setiawangsa parliamentary constituency.

In fact, there is another lady that is older than Che Sapiah's age which is believed to be 115. Tey Kim was born in 1890 and she is now 122 years old. She is a voter in Lawas parliamentary constituency, Sarawak. Her details are stated in the screenshot.

I think I am fair to say that due diligence should be done before our main stream newspapers like Star and NST publish the news of oldest persons in Malaysia. Wong Kwan Moy and Tey Kim may not be too  pleased to read the news recognizing other Malaysians as oldest persons while they are actually older. They have official record to prove their case. Star and NST perhaps owe them an apology.

Interestingly, there are many fascinating news that can be found in our official records such as electoral rolls. I am confident that the sales figure of Star or NST will improve significantly by publishing these fascinating news. These news are of course of interest to the Malaysian public. Firstly, they are intriguing. Secondly, they are contained in our official records. They are reliable of course.

I do not wish to deprive you of the chance to read these fantastic news simply because our main stream newspapers are somewhat ignorant. Please click here to access some of the news that i can consider them as intriguing as recent Hollywood suspense movies.

As a follow up reading. This article may be of interest to you too. Click: http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2012/04/23/explain-cleanest-roll-in-the-world/



The following have been referred to:
http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/194373
http://www.nst.com.my/nation/general/malaysia-s-oldest-man-dies-at-age-117-1.141718
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2012/9/11/nation/12005444&sec=nation
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2012/3/19/nation/10944408&sec=nation
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2012/3/30/nation/11013710&sec=nation

Spouse and Vote - the consequences

At certain time of our lives, we are bound to ponder upon the more important matters in life. Naturally, there are many important persons and things in life. There are parents, siblings, friends, education, career, spouse, children, etc. Many important things in life are given and not chosen. There is no choice. For example, parents, siblings and children. They are all god given. Education and career are chosen to a certain extent but not entirely due to limitation of financial ability, etc. We choose friends, in a way, as much as they choose us. Friends can come and go over time as a matter of choice.

Choosing a spouse is a very key decision in a lifetime. It is in itself a very major decision to make whether to have a spouse or not. A choice of who is the spouse is part of that very major decision that one has to go through in most adult lives. Why is a decision on spouse so critical? This decision affects many persons and events surrounding our lives. I shall attempt to state a list of persons that may be affected by this decision:

1. Parents
2. Children, if any
3. Siblings


I believe these 3 categories of people are in themselves important people that may also influence our decision in deciding on a spouse. One usually cares strongly for these people and want the choice of a  spouse to have a positive impact on them as opposed to a negative one.

It has come to my mind recently that there is another decision that affects even more  people around us. This thing is called 'Vote'. Voting by the people is used in a democratic country to choose a government. It is then a government by the people, of the people and for the people. This is the beauty of democracy. Ordinary people like you and me have a say in the rules and environment that they live in. Democracy allows people to participate equally—either directly or through elected representatives—in the proposal, development, and creation of laws.

Each individual's vote is very important in deciding a government that manage our lives and affairs. A choice of government may even be more critical than a choice of spouse. I shall do another attempt to state a comprehensive list of persons that may be affected by voting or choice of government:


1. Parents
2. Spouse
3. Children, if any
4. Siblings
5. Niece, nephews and relatives, etc
6. Neighbours, children of  neighbours
7. Friends
8. Future generations
9. Goodwill of current generations


You can see that on top of parents, siblings and children, there are many more people that are affected by our decision on a vote. It affects people whom we normally do not care about as much as our own family members. Remember that cute little daughter of your neighbour? Yes, your decision on who to vote for affects her too. The impact can be long lasting well beyond our lifetime.

I highlight goodwill of current generations in point 9. I believe it is something that we think less about.  We must remember that our future generations have to live with our decisions of yesterday and today. They will blame us for not voting wisely and choosing a good government. Only a good government can ensure good prospects for future generations.

Many parents wish to leave something behind for their children. They hope their children will have better or easier life than them. They usually leave wealth as inheritance. What I believe is that parents can do more than that. Parents can still pass on inheritance to their children. They should also leave a legacy that is more than just wealth. They should wherever possible leave a legacy of good government, laws and living environments to their children. They should stand up to what is believed to be wrong and put in efforts to correct a wrong. Go for short term pain but long term gain. There is no guarantee that long term gain will come but we must at least put our community in the right path. We are not here to pass our burden to our children and any future generations.

Whether it is a question on choice of a spouse or a vote, we must act with our long term interest in mind and more so the interest of our future generations at heart. Give a thought to those people that may be affected by our decision.

SIZE MATTERS NOW

I have met up with a few friends over the past several months. I was surprised by their apathy over their basic democratic rights to choose their government of choice. They were disinterested in exercising their voting rights even though most of them are in fact registered voters. I was very concerned. Voting right is our birth right in a democratic country. There are many things that we cannot choose in our life but certainly we can choose our government.


I inquired further and found out that they cared a lot about their country and its well being. They wanted to choose a good government to make their country great. However, they were in dissolution over the electoral rolls or the authenticity of voters in the registered list. They felt that their votes have become useless due to the numerous alleged manipulation of voters' list.


"I vote but so what? Can my vote do anything?" is the gist of the feeling among my friends.While i gave them the benefit of doubts on what they claimed, I was determined to search for more information on alleged manipulation of voters' list.


It did not take me a long time to dig out some  information this. Mr Google pretty much did all the work for me. When i read through some published articles. 'Surprised' i was with the claims of my friends, but 'astonished' i am now with the problems and potential manipulations of our voters' list. We are no Myanmar. We are not a young democratic country. Our elections have been going around for more than 50 years. Surely, we have established voting processes and a well documented voters' list, havent we?


My first shock was the fact that our Election Commission could decide that it would 'pick and choose' whether to implement any of the recommendations of Parliamentary Select Committee. Several excuses were given. I thought that was arrogance and refusal to acknowledge their potential problems. Unless, Election Commission can rebut and prove that the Parliamentary Select Committee is wrong in its recommendations, it should implement all the recommendations immediately. It is for the good of our country.


My second shocker came with the incompleteness of Parliamentary Select Committee's reviews and recommendations. Have they not done their job as parliamentarians?


According to this gentleman, called Ong Kian Ming, there are 10 more major problems in our Election Commission's electoral roll on top of the 22 recommendations by the Parliamentary Select Committee. He stated openly that "the [Parliamentary] report fails to acknowledge significant problems that have to do with the electoral roll, many of which are already well known, and seems to limit the scope of checking the accuracy of the electoral roll to a few not very useful parameters". Huh?!? Election Commission is probably not doing a good job, but the  Parliamentary Select Committee is also not doing a decent job? Is this real or not? I kept asking myself.


Mr Ong went on to elaborate the 10 problems:


The 10 problems are:

1) Voters who are above 85 years old.

2) Inconsistencies in the gender indicated by the IC number and EC data.

3) Voters with the same name, and some with the same/similar date of birth.

4) Voters who have IC addresses with the state of birth as ‘7x', indicating that they are born overseas.

5) Voters in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur in the third quarter and fourth quarter of 2011 who do not have house addresses, even though other newly-registered voters in the same locality have house addresses.

6) Postal voters who are registered using their regular ICs.

7) Spouses of police who are registered as postal voters.

8) Spouses of army/police voters who are of the same gender.

9) Army and police voters who are above the retirement age.

10) New army and police postal voters who are above the recruitment age.




I may not be an election expert but I surely think that the 10 major problems sound like big problems. The details are exciting and you should really click on this link and read them. The details are quite exciting. No less than watching a good movie.

Ong Kian Ming

There are another 2 articles by Mr Ong Kian Ming in Malaysiakini on top of his first part of 10 major problems. I suggest that you use your newspaper money to subscribe to Malaysiakini to read more. I could not wait and immediately registered with Malaysiakini for further reading. It actually costs less than monthly subscription of daily newspaper! I attach the links for the other 2 articles:


http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/194435 (10 major problems. Part 2)


http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/195823 (further problems in addition to 10 major problems. How many more problems are there ':-(  )


Mr Ong Kian Ming may just be a lecturer, I am sure he loves his country so dearly that he is willing to spend so much time to dig out the 'dirt' in the voters' list. Based on my work  experience, these works take ages to do and damn meticulous. Bravo to this gentleman. If you feel really stingy and still wish to read further, perhaps you can contact Mr Ong Kian Ming and see if he is willing to share some information with you at the following email: im.ok.man@gmail.com  (Please dont get angry at me, Mr Ong. I admire you so much that i actually have to share it this posting)


Hey, if you only want free information and can not take any trouble, I have also attached here some other links on problems of voters' list:


http://www.bersih.org/?p=4754


http://www.mmail.com.my/story/electoral-roll-rife-errors


http://1christians.blogspot.com/2012/06/strange-case-of-recycled-ics-in-sabah.html  (I am not a christian and the article has nothing to do with religion. Its about voters. Go ahead and read)


Our Election Commission has also come out to say that our electoral roll is the cleanest in the world. 


It is not easy to believe our Election Commission on such a claim. It is only recently that the big boss of  police, Inspector General of Police, claimed that Malaysia is the safest country in Southeast Asia. Seriously?!?  I wonder what Singapore and Brunei have to say about this.


I now understand why my friends are disheartened with the authenticity or effectiveness of the our election. The question is how many percent of the voters' list is bad? 0%, 5%, 10%, 20% or more? I do not have an answer to this. We have about 13 million registered voters in this country. Any percentage of illegitimate voters is bad.


I wish to advise my friends not to give up. One must not let status quo remains if one thinks that the status quo is bad. A rightful citizen like us must do something to right what is wrong. We dont want to leave any of the wrong for our children or younger generation. We are not here to pass burden to them.


I agree that we cant do much as each of us only has one vote against potentially thousands or even millions of illegitimate voters. Let's not be despair. We, the rightful voters, can be an insurmountable force if we act collectively. Each and every one of us must come out to vote. We must not stay at home disheartened. If we come out to cast our votes and we vote in the right direction for this country. No matter what percentage of errors, problems and seemingly manipulations in voters' list, we shall prevails. We, the rightful voters, still form the majority voters, at least up to this point. Size matters now.


Let's act now to send a signal so strong that no percentage of errors, problems and alleged abuses can alter the direction of this signal. Each of us should probably do more than just casting a vote. We should at least convince 2 persons close to us that everyone should come out to cast this very important vote in the coming general election. These 2 persons in turn should each persuades another 2 persons close to them to vote. We have to make this vote counts. We have to make this vote cleans up the voters' list or electoral rolls. We vote for a government that is serious in cleaning up the voters' list. We, the rightful citizens, of the country cannot decide what is good for our country if the voters' list is not clean and free from problems.

There are more heroes after all

History is a study of study of past events, in particular in human affair. History explains what has happened in the developments of human affairs of a place. It is unfortunate when a history is not necessarily stated in an manner that is objective and fair to all the parties to it. History is often told  from the perspective of the teller. That person conveys it in the ways that he want the rest of the people to believe.

I can agree that a person, a company or an private organisation does that from their own points of view. They have their own vested private interest to do it. The question whether a government of a country can manage historical information as such that it only benefits the ruling party or the government in office. A government is a government of the people, by the people and for the people in a democratic country. It should only act in the interest of the people and portray historical events fairly for all the people of the country. In real life, I suspect there are not many countries that are willing to do that, especially when one ruling party has been in power for a few decades.


Hero is typically some one who is admired for courage or noble qualities. All heroes in a country should be recognized. Heroes in a country must have a place in the history of that country. Malaysia has many heroes over the course of its history. Heroes of the countries can be political leaders, sports persons, inventors, scientists or even heroic  personality of ordinary man and woman. You can find a book on 100 Malaysian Heroes launched in 2012. You can find the news here: http://ms.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_Wajah_Wira, and here: http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2012/4/25/nation/11168827&sec=nation


In my view, there are many more  heroes in Malaysia. The book, 100 Malaysian Heroes, perhaps only tells one side of the story . I can instantly name 2 recent heroes of this country, Ambiga Sreenevasan and  Abdul Samad bin Muhammad Said  (Pak Samad). 

Ambiga Sreenevasan

  

Pak Samad

You can read about the background of Ambiga here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambiga_Sreenevasan and Pak Samad here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._Samad_Said .

I came across these 2 personalities several weeks before Bersih 2.0 in 2011. Both of them played very important roles in shaping and leading the Bersih coalition to strive for clean and fair election in Malaysia. I was very curious why would a 74 years old man still wanted to walk and march under of the hot sun with thousands of much younger Malaysians during the Bersih 2.0 rally.Pak Samad is a national laureate. I find Ambiga's involvement more understandable because she is an ex-president of Bar Council and active civil activist. After all, she is only in her 50's.

Since 2011, i started to read more about news of Pak Samad and Ambiga. Their roles become even more prominent during the Bersih 3.0 rally in April this year. I began to admire the cause that they are striving to accomplish. They were not spending all those hours organizing Bersih rally for themselves. They risked tear gas, chemically laced water canon and police arrests. Should everything goes well, they still have to endure hot sun and possibly rain through the rally. It rained during Bersih 2.0 and in contrast the sun was scorching hot during Bersh 3.0. In both instances, water canon, tear gas and arrests were all widely used by the police.

The key question is why are they still actively pursuing clean and fair election under the name of Bersih?

For me, the answer is in the few words uttered by both of them which i have put in quotes below:


Pak Samad

“Some people have told me that I have changed as a person. But I know I am still the same. I do what I do, say what I say and write what I write because I don’t want to die useless. I want to be able to die knowing that I did something for my country, even if it’s a small part, to bring about the change I hope to see in my lifetime.”

You can read more  here: http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2012/02/20/i-dont-want-to-die-useless/

Ambiga

"I didn’t do enough to fight the rot that was setting in which is the result of what we are seeing today. We should have stood up to corruption and abuse of power much earlier. I think we have failed our next generation because it is the responsibility of everyone to make sure that things go right."

You can read more here: http://www.mmail.com.my/story/unfinished-business-bersih-30; http://www.thesundaily.my/news/388234

These are some of the most inspiring words that i have seen for years. They put tears into my eyes. For someone to say this, it takes a lot of belief in what they are doing and the determination to do the right thing. Do you not think that they are so selfless? Are they not  a form of true heroes of this country?

Pak Samad and Ambiga may not have their names in our history books. They may be branded as 'bad persons' for causing  chaos and losses to petty traders. For those who read, we know better who Ambiga and Pak Samad are. Perhaps, our children will not learn about them in their schools but I am sure that they have a place in my children's history of Malaysia. I will make sure that they learnabout Pak Samad and Ambiga. The heroes that inspired hundreds of thousand of Malaysians in the pursuit to have a clean and fair election, and a cleaner, fairer, better Malaysia.