Strike on the Philippine terrorists a success, extradite Sulu Sultan to Malaysia!

A Nuri helicopter departing for Kampung Tanduo to take part in an air offensive against the terrorists holed up there. Bernama pic



NO CHOICE: Police, military unleash massive offensive against terrorists

LAHAT DATU: SECURITY forces successfully launched a major offensive at daybreak yesterday on Sulu terrorists following a 21-day stand-off that had left eight policemen dead and triggered panic in Sabah's east coast.

In a never-before-seen offensive, security forces yesterday unleashed a massive strike involving the police and the military on Kampung Tanduo near here, where the terrorists were holed up.

While the number of deaths among the terrorists following the strike, codenamed Ops Daulat, was not immediately known, what was obvious was the tremendous support shown by Malaysians for this course of action.

Malaysians had run out of compassion for this band of terrorists as numerous efforts undertaken by the governments of Malaysia and the Philippines to end the stand-off peacefully, were ignored.

Some 2,000 security personnel from the armed forces and police were deployed yesterday in a 2km area in Kampung Tanduo after airstrikes. There were no reports of casualties from the Malaysian side.

Morale among the security forces was high, despite the fact that they lost eight of their comrades in clashes with terrorists several days ago.

Just after the strike, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, delivering an emotionally-packed speech at a gathering of Islamic scholars in Bukit Jalil, was firm when he spoke of their resoluteness in protecting Malaysia's sovereignty.

Najib, with a pained look as he narrated the grief he felt when meeting the widows of the policemen, also expressed his frustration that the terrorists had not heeded calls to withdraw and avoid bloodshed.

It was a tough call, but one that "as the leader of the government", Najib had to make.

The 16,000-odd crowd applauded in approval when Najib said the time for diplomacy had ended.

Nobody could have mistaken that as a show of arrogance. It was simply an endorsement that as the leader of the country, he was doing what needed to be done.

While some opposition leaders had politicised the issue, there were those who also threw their support behind yesterday's action.

Even Kelantan Menteri Besar Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat, an ardent critic of the government, supported the move, urging Sabah folk to remain loyal to the country and not help the terrorists.

Yesterday, three weeks after the Sulu gunmen landed on our shores, Malaysia and the Philippines agreed that they be labelled "terrorists".

This was decided at a meeting between Foreign Affairs Minister Datuk Seri Anifah Aman and his Philippine counterpart, Senator Albert F. del Rosario.

Anifah also asked that action be taken against the self-proclaimed Sultan of Sulu, Jamalul Kiram III, for inciting hatred and violence against Malaysians.

Yesterday's strike, however, is not the end of the issue.

Residents are afraid of reprisals by the terrorists but in a joint media briefing, the defence and home ministers assured Sabahans that they would always be protected.

Malaysia can extradite so-called Sulu Sultan 

 
Wanted: Jamalul speaking to the press in Manila as he affirms his sultanate’s claim to Sabah. — AFP

 

PETALING JAYA: Malaysia can seek the extradition of self-proclaimed Sulu Sultan Jamalul Kiram III from the Philippines to face the law over the intrusion into Sabah, legal experts said.

They said Malaysia’s arrest and extradition of Moro National Libera­tion Front leader Nur Misuari to the Philippines in 2001 following a request by that country had set a precedent for cooperation in dealing with such cases.

Muslim Lawyers Association of Malaysia Datuk Zainul Rijal Abu Bakar said the culprits, including those based in Philippines such as Jamalul Kiram, needed to be brought to Malaysia to face criminal charges of waging war against the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, an offence under the Penal Code that is punishable by death upon conviction.

“Our sovereignty has been challenged and while Malaysia wanted to avoid bloodshed they started firing, triggering action which resulted in our security personnel dead, which means there is no more room to forgive them,” said Zainul.

He added that since Jamalul Kiram did not directly take up weapons in Malaysian territory, he could be investigated for abetting to wage war, which also carries the death penalty upon conviction.

International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) Associate Professor Shamrahayu A. Aziz said the charge could be used against the culprits even if they were not Malaysian citizens because what mattered was where the crime was committed.

“It is also possible for Malaysia to request the extradition of a person who is not in our country if we can prove that the instructions came from him or that he instigated or incited the actions,” she said.

Emeritus Professor of Law at Univ­er­s­iti Teknologi Mara Prof Datuk Shad Saleem Faruqi said many Sections in Chapter 6 of the Penal Code could be used against the culprits.

He said Malaysians in Lahad Datu, who had given protection to the intruders, could also be charged under Section 125A of the Act, which makes it an offence to harbour any person in Malaysia or a foreign country who is at war or considered hostile against the King.

In addition, Shad Faruqi said the culprits could also be charged under the newly included Section 6A of the Penal Code, which deals with offences relating to terrorism.

On the possibility of the Philippines requesting to Malaysia to send its naval ships to offer assistance, Prof Dr Aruna Gopinath from Universiti Pertahanan Nasional Malaysia said it must only be done after obtaining an agreement from the Malaysian Government.

“If there is an offer from them to want to help or monitor then they must wait for an agreement from us, they cannot just sail here unilaterally as that would be trespassing,” she said.

In an unrelated development Raja Muda Azzimudie Kiram, the brother of the self-proclaimed Sulu Sultan Jamalul Kiram III, is believed to be alive and well even after the attack.

“He (the Raja Muda) is still alive,” the sultanate’s spokesman Abraham Idjirani told The Star in a phone interview from Manila.

“I spoke to him yesterday (Tuesday) morning and he said he and the troops were still in Sabah and still in good condition”.

However, Idjirani admitted he had not heard from Azzimudie since then but claimed he was “definitely okay”.

“The Malaysian security forces attacked an area that the Raja Muda and his troops had long since vacated. There are only four injured men, but they are all safe.” he said, referring to the Malaysian security force’s assault on the intruders in Lahad Datu early yesterday morning.

Sources: Asia News Network

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The West envious of global economy led by China

As central banks in the euro zone and Britain edge closer this week to deciding that their flagging economies need yet more monetary stimulus, they can be forgiven for casting an envious eye towards China.

The same goes for the United States. Because of deadlock in budget talks, mandatory federal spending cuts are now being phased. They will brake a recovery that, as Friday's jobs report is likely to show, is already frustratingly weak.

China, the biggest contributor to global growth in recent years, has plenty of headaches of its own, of course.

Over reliance on investment in heavy industry, a financial system rigged in favour of the state, and a failure to integrate some 140 million rural migrant workers into urban life top the list of structural problems.

Louis Kuijs, an economist with Royal Bank of Scotland in Hong Kong, adds rising inflation, a renewed climb in house prices and a rapid expansion in 'shadow banking' to the government's to-do list for 2013.

But Kuijs and other economists expect outgoing Premier Wen Jiabao to reaffirm a growth target of 7.5 percent for this year when he delivers his last 'state of the nation' report to the annual meeting of parliament that opens on Tuesday.

China entered 2013 with solid growth momentum thanks to measured policy stimulus in the second half of last year. That impetus is now fading somewhat after a strong fourth quarter, as figures for January and February will probably suggest.

So, just as the West is looking to China to boost global demand, China is counting on a pick-up in the West as 2013 unfolds to help exports and revive corporate investment, Kuijs said.

"Looking at trade and industrial production indicators, we are all expecting a strengthening global picture, coming especially from the United States and Europe, but it's still a forecast: it's not showing up yet in the hard data," he said.

Euro Zone Disappoints

Indeed, the European Commission is projecting that the euro zone economy will shrink in 2013 for the second straight year. And February's survey of purchasing managers was downright weak.

"This increases the chances of a rate cut, but it's still not our baseline assumption," said Petr Zemcik, director of European economics at Moody's Analytics in London. "The ECB has done all it can at this stage."

His comments were in line with a Reuters poll of economists, which saw a 90 percent chance that the ECB, the European Central Bank, would keep its main short-term interest rate unchanged at 0.75 percent when it meets on Thursday.

However, a growing minority expects the ECB will cut rates at some point. Doing so now, right after Italy's election produced a big protest vote against austerity, would invite the suspicion that the bank was acting out of political panic.

But President Mario Draghi is sure to be quizzed about further easing and possible activation of the ECB's bond-buying program for euro zone strugglers, especially if the bank lowers its 2013 growth and inflation forecasts again.

Jeffrey Anderson with the Institute for International Economics in Washington, a financial-industry lobby group, said a rate cut would send a useful signal of the importance of growth to voters weary of austerity.

The Italian economy has shrunk for six quarters in a row. Euro zone unemployment hit a record 11.9 percent in January.

At the same time, euro zone finance ministers, who meet on Monday, should excuse Italy from further fiscal tightening as its budget is close to structural balance, Anderson argued.

"Ways must still be found to prod Italy to move on overdue labor market liberalization. But action to boost near-term growth would help Europe to sustain the popular backing necessary to advance the reforms needed for the longer term," he said in a note.

Bank of England Closer to Easing

In Britain, the government seems determined to stick to budget austerity despite a sharp drop in manufacturing in February and a stinging defeat for Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservative party in a parliamentary by-election.

This keeps the onus on the Bank of England, three of whose nine policymakers have already voted to expand the central bank's stock of asset purchases, now set at 375 billion pounds.

That could turn into a majority as soon as Thursday, when the BOE meets to set policy, if a survey two days earlier of the all-important services sector is weak, said Simon Hayes, an economist at Barclays Capital in London.

Further easing by the Federal Reserve is not on the cards. But job figures on Friday are likely to underscore that the U.S. central bank is in no hurry to withdraw its stimulus - the message Chairman Ben Bernanke relayed to Congress last week.

According to a Reuters poll, firms probably added 160,000 non-farm jobs last month, in line with January's 157,000 gain, while the unemployment rate held steady at 7.9 percent.

That is well above the Fed's goal of 6.5 percent. Moreover, federal spending cuts, if not reversed, will stiffen fiscal headwinds and could lop 0.5 percent off growth over the rest of this year, many economists estimate.

Nevertheless, Jim O'Sullivan, chief U.S. economist with High Frequency Economics in Valhalla, New York, is confident that it is just a matter of time before the Fed's ultra-easy policy starts to bear more fruit.

Job growth was already brisk enough to reduce the unemployment rate given a secular decline in the participation rate due to an ageing population, he argued.

"Based on what we're seeing in the labor market, in the battle between monetary stimulus and fiscal drag, the Fed is winning," O'Sullivan said. - Reuters

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Hit by US automatic spending cuts, tax hikes, budget cuts

Hit by US automatic spending cuts, tax hikes, budget cuts

The government spending cuts in the United States as the President and Congress fail to reach a deal will also affect poor developing countries as the aid budget, especially for food and medicine, is reduced.


ON MARCH 1, the United States government had to introduce spending cuts of US$85bil (RM263bil) for this year, as President Barack Obama and the Congress failed to reach an agreement on how to reduce the budget deficit.

The so-called “sequestration” marked a new failure in relations between the President and the Republicans in Congress.

The term “dysfunctional” is now commonly used to describe the US government system, as the deadlock between the President and Congress, and the animosity between the Democrat and Republican parties have blocked laws, policies and agreements.

The most visible of this dysfunctionality is in the government’s inability to come to grips with economic policy, especially by how much and how to reduce the budget deficit.

Republican budget deficit hawks are obsessed with slashing government spending to reduce the budget deficit. Prominent Keynesian-influenced economists like Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz argue that cutting government spending in the midst of a weak economy is unnecessary and will tip the country into a new recession.

Obama himself is in favour of deficit cutting but wants it done in a balanced way – by increasing government revenue through increased taxes on the rich (or closing loopholes that allow them to avoid taxes) and by lesser spending cuts that do not affect the poor.

The “sequestration” issue began in 2011 when a deadlock developed between Congress and Obama over the budget. Obama then proposed that a list of specific automatic spending cuts would go into effect on March 1 if no new deal was reached.

The proposed cuts were deliberately chosen to be so bad that Congress would not allow them to take effect. Or so Obama thought. He would use this as leverage to get the balance of tax increases and smaller spending cuts that he had in mind.

But, in the end, the Republicans called his bluff, and now the spending cuts have come into effect – US$1.2 trillion (RM3.71 trillion) over 10 years, starting with US$85bil (RM263bil) this fiscal year.

The effects will be felt not only by Americans but also the developing countries. They include the negative fallout on global growth and expected cuts in aid going to poor countries.

This comes at a bad time as the rich economies are already on a downward path.

Last week, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the group of 34 rich countries, said that the gross domestic product of its members fell by an annual rate of 0.6% in the last quarter of 2012.

The European Commission, meanwhile, predicted that the Eurozone economies would contract by 0.3% this year, which could prove to be optimistic given the recent political uncertainties in Italy.

The spending cuts in the US would add to the contractionary trend in the rich countries.

The continuously weakening of the Western economies will have adverse effects on exports, tourism, workers’ remittances and incomes in developing countries.

There is another and more direct dimension to the “sequestration” on the developing world. The government’s spending cuts will affect the budget for aid given to poor countries and to development programmes such as provision of medicines and food, according to a report by the Inter Press Service (IPS).

The new secretary of state, John Kerry, revealed that the State Department and its aid agency Usaid, would have to cut US$2.6bil (RM8bil) from their 2013 budget.

The cuts would include US$200mil (RM619mil) from humanitarian assistance and US$400mil (RM1.23bil) from global health programmes.

For example, the US would reduce its contribution to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria by US$300mil (RM928mil) this year, meaning there will be less medicine donated to poor countries.

Kerry has written to Congress stating that this reduction would reduce the United States’ ability to provide food assistance to two million people and Usaid would have to cease, reduce, or not initiate assistance to millions of disaster affected people, and would “gravely impede” efforts at reducing AIDS-related and child deaths.

The IPS report also quoted Jeremy Kadden of InterAction (an alliance of NGOs aiding developing countries) as saying: “These cuts will cost lives. We’ve made very significant progress over the past 10 years, with real people improving their lives, and this would set that process back enormously, devastating actual people on the ground.”

He estimated that the budget cuts would lead to some three million children losing access to the basic education they currently receive; two million people would suffer reductions in or stop receiving food aid, while 600,000 children would lose nutrition assistance.

Unlike in the United Kingdom, where the Cameron government decided not to cut its aid budget despite huge slashing of the overall government budget, there is no exemption for overseas spending in the US sequestration exercise.

The poor in America will also be affected. About 600,000 low-income women and children will stop receiving food aid.

Also affected in the US$26bil (RM80mil) cut in domestic programmes are health, education, drug enforcement, national parks and Hurricane Sandy relief.

Low-income families will also be affected by a cut in public housing subsidies, which could hurt about 125,000 poor families, according to The Guardian.

The National Institutes of Health, which will suffer a 5% budget cut, is cancelling hundreds of research grants.

Another US$16bil (RM49.5bil) in mandatory spending will be cut, including in medicare, agriculture programmes and unemployment benefits.

The main cuts will however come from the military budget, down by US$43bil (RM133bil) in 2013, on top of the US$500bil (RM1.55 trillion) budget cut over 10 years agreed to in 2011.

Global Trends By MARTIN KHOR

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