The Ministry of Information, Malaysia, is to set up a unit to monitor issues of national interest on the Internet. The unit would answer all 'lies and slander'.
Deputy Information Minister, Chia Kwang Chye said the idea was mooted in view of the 'growing importance of the Internet as a powerful communication tool.'
Chia said answers would be in the form of written explanations. However, he did not say how or to whom the answers are to be given.
Of late, the Information Ministry has been 'invading' into other ministries portfolios and this latest move is a classic example.
The Information Ministry have no enforcement power on the Internet or its contents, in fact, it has no enforcement power even over contents of its own radio and television networks. The enforcement power has been transfered to the Energy, Water and Communications Ministry.
Under prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad, the Information Ministry's 'power' has been reduced to just information and a not-so-accurate and reliable feedback agency. Its supervisory and authority on broadcasting matters including approving of licence and monitoring of electronic media contents has been taken away. It has also lost control over the National Film Development Corporation or FINAS to the Culture, Arts and Heritage Ministry.
The Information Ministry is now left with the Information Department, the National News Agency (Bernama), the National Film Unit (Filem Negara) and the Special Affairs Department. Bernama, a statutory board, is factually on its own feet.
It is a well known fact that the Information Ministry has not been successful in a number of tasks assigned to it. For example, it failed to woo foreign news agencies and electronic media to set up their regional office or bureau in Kuala Lumpur.
In the year 2000, the ministry said that it was wooing the foreign media to Kuala Lumpur which it claimed offered comparative advantages such as the KL International Airport, the Multi Media Super Corridor and the Petronas Twin Towers.
The government failed to establish Kuala Lumpur as a regional news and information centre and the Information Ministry was responsible for its failure.
International news agencies and television news networks such as Reuters, AFP (French news agency), Associated Press, Kyodo news agency, Jiji and Fuji from Japan, Cable News Network (CNN), CNBC and BBC decided to set up their regional bureaus in Singapore.
Now, the ministry wants to monitor issues of national interest on the Internet, what can I say... enjoy surfing the net!
KUDA RANGGI - You can take a horse to (the) water but you can't make it drink.
3 comments:
Dear Bro Syed Imran,
The Ministry of Information or better known as Angkasapuri is left with four (4) departments and an agency;
RTM or The Malaysian Boradcasting Department (Jabatan Penyiaran Malaysia)
The Information Deparment (Jabatan Penerangan Malaysia)
The National Film Department (Jabatan Filem Negara Malaysia)
The Special Affairs Department (the last I checked it was still Jabatan Hal Ehwal Khas and was told that its name was changed to Jabatan Hal Ehwal Siasah hence Jasa by Kadir Sheikh Fadzir). However the ministry's website said that JAS stands for Jabatan Hal Ehwal Khas or what was then known as JHEK.
and
Bernama the one and only agency which means it was a statutory body of the government.
Kementerian Penerangan or KemPen as Tok Mat acryomned it to be the only ministry whose name and function was one and the same does not have jurisdiction over the private broadcasting bodies since the abolishment of the Boradcasting Act 1978.
The regulatory body of all the private broadcasting institution were under the purview of the Malaysian Multimedia and Communications Commission (MCMC) which reports to the Energy, Water and Communications Ministry.
Angkasapuri now only oversees the contents of RTM (both radio and tv) and RTM alone.
Tuan Syed,
I observed that one glaring misperception of even those in authority is to view the Information Ministry as RTM. Let it be known that RTM is just one of the agencies under the ministry and not its entire machinery. Time for RTM to discard its 'big brother' syndrome and admit that it cannot even compete with a fellow agency under the ministry. It would be wrong for RTM to think that just because it has long been associated with television, others cannot beat it at its own game. Even JAKIM, another government agency, had turned to TV9 to broadcast live its media ward presentation recently.
Salvatore "Sammy The Bull" Gravanno's life was on the line. Staring at was a definite death sentence, if not a very long, long jail time at Sing Sing and one which would be too long that he will not live to see the outside of the prison ever.
The multiple term of jail sentences (either consecutively or concurrently) he was looking at were more than handful for the murders, attempted murders, conspiracy to commit murders, culpability etc that he will be charged with for his involvement as the confidante, the most trusted under-boss and the right hand of John "Johnny Boy" Gotti, head of the Gambino Family in New York.
What did he do?
His incarceration was spent thinking of the noose hovering over the head and it was absolutely impossible for Sammy to make a dash out of the county jail that was holding him as the most-valued-person-in-custody.
Then what did he do?
Sammy called the FBI to offer a deal and the feds were impressed with the beans spilled. They cut him a deal and that he was only to finger Gotti in court. It was either him or Gotti. It was that simple.
Sammy was not called The Bull for nothing. He was the most ruthless hatchet man ever during Gotti's reign of New York's Cosa Nostra. He was said to have no heart when it comes to killing, simply like having sex or his mouth over a bowl of an Italian funguso zupe.
The moral of the story: Even the most heartless of a criminal had a heart when it came to his own life hanging in the balance, with lots of prospect going over to a little chamber where he will be administered with a lethal injection. And he will die.
Perhaps then the State of New York still practices capital punishment. However the death prospect spooked him to the core and he became a rat.
He had all the money (which was by then became useless already due to his predicament) in the world but the prospect really had his world caved in, leaving him in a total darkness unless he walked the way the Feds wanted him to.
Then what?
Sammy broke the most sacred cardinal principle of Cosa Nostra or the strict code of silence and fingered Gotti's for being the man who ordered all the executions and rap everything about the Gambinos including the slaying of Paul “Big Paulie” Castellano.
Gotti, a former Time magazine Man of the Year and the most powerful Boss of the Bosses in New York simply had no defense against Sammy's words under oath and was convicted and sent to the slammer for a long time. None was heard of him then after.
Sammy now lived under an assumed name with his family somewhere in the US and the last time the world heard about him that he was into organic gardening! That means Sammy was very much alive and kicking, or gardening!
Sound familiar? Maybe…
Now, I wonder whether Razak Baginda has the guts to;
(1) Spill the beans or.
(2) Do not spill the beans… it was a tough choice but he had to make a decision soon…
Questions: Does he have what it takes? Will he walk Sammy's way?
Sammy was The Bull and Razak was not. So, will he break the code of silence now that his life was on the line? A so-called heartless man had already been crippled with the death sentence in a striking distance. How about Razak?
Picture this: All them Gambino guys had fun together during the good old days but once Sammy was in custody he was all alone, done and pondering his future that he was unable to chart anymore.
Again, sounds familiar?
Unless he rat.
Sammy rat and he survived. And so did his family.
The feds' witness protection programme was known to be not too iron-clad (which meant that some rats were found, fried and whacked by the Cosa Nostra guys years later somewhere and somehow) but Salvatore "Sammy The Bull" Gravanno was still breathing the last time they checked on him. Unless there was an unannounced demise.
Now, what about Abdul Razak Abdullah Baginda, the so-called brain behind some bigshot?
Some brain he has lah!! Brainy people will not allow themselves to be put in such a brainless situation that is absolutely incomprehenable to the brain. This is no-brainer lah!
Question: Will the event to unfold soon sound familiar? Erte Salvatore "Sammy The Bull" Gravanno?
Zaki Tok Tam
Anakbukit, Alor Setar, Kedah
p.s.the story above was original, unlike the ones u read in Mario Puzo's Godfather, Godfather II and Godfather III where even the name like Vito Andolini Corleone was ficticious.
The trilogy was a tradition of a Don as head of the Lake Como-based Corleone Family from Vito (played by Marlon Brando and Robert DeNiro in the trilogy) to Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) and then to Vincent Corleone (played by Cuban Andy Garcia).
Since assuming the family name of Corleone, Vicenzo had to be changed his birth name to Vincent Corleone to become Don Vincent Corleone. All films were produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola whose own daughter Sofea Coppola acted as the daugther of Michael in the final part of the trilogy.
The Godfather Trilogy was of epic propotion but the real story of John Gotti I illustrated above was even better and real. It also sounds very familiar, here.
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