The Sun 2008-10-30 Page10

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theSun

| THURSDAY OCTOBER 30 2008

news without borders

Student killed chasing robbers by Charles Ramendran [email protected]

KUALA LUMPUR: Although just a teenager, his civic-mindedness drove him to respond to the cries of a couple who had just been robbed by bogus cops. He chased the crooks on his motorcycle but fate took a cruel twist when the 17-year-old student was killed after his machine crashed in the pursuit near Dataran Merdeka at 5.40am yesterday. Mustakin Minsawi of Pantai Dalam was with his friends at a food stall in the area when they heard cries for help from a couple nearby.

The couple were confronted by two men impersonating policemen who, on the pretext of checking their identity cards, snatched the woman’s handbag and sped off on a motorcycle towards Jalan Maharajalela. On seeing this, Mustakin and his friends jumped onto their motorcycles and gave chase. According to his friends, Mustakin, who was riding his motorcycle alone, managed to catch up with the robbers and in his attempt to stop them, took off his helmet and tried to hit the rider. However, the robbers kicked his motorcycle, causing it to crash at

high speed. The robbers then fled Mustakin, without the protection of a crash helmet, suffered serious head injuries. He was rushed to the Kuala Lumpur Hospital but succumbed to his injuries about 20 minutes after being wheeled into the emergency room. His older brother later lodged a police report. Dang Wangi district police said the couple who were robbed had yet to lodge a report. Police also urged witnesses of the incident to come forward or call 03-2115 9999 to assist investigators in tracking down the robbers.

Guan Eng clears air over multilingual road signs GEORGE TOWN: The inclusion of languages other than Malay in signboards applies to only a few streets within the Unesco heritage zone, said Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng. “The language of the signboards will remain in Malay as it was before,” he said, adding that the issue had been politicised. “What we are doing is to insert an additional language in certain streets in the Unesco area that have special cultural significance,” he said. For example, Acheen Street would also have Arabic or Jawi, while streets in Little India would include Tamil. “There is a false perception generated that the government will be substituting signboards from Malay to Chinese. This

is not true,” he said yesterday. There was a deliberate attempt to skew the state’s intentions to stoke racial sentiments, Lim, who is currently leading an investment mission to South Korea, said through his press secretary when asked to comment on criticisms made by Unity, Culture, Arts and Heritage Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal about the multilingual signs. In his comments on Tuesday, Shafie gave a warning to Penang to stick to Malay in its signage. Lim said if the federal government was against the state’s move to have scripts that are not in Bahasa Malaysia, it should not have allowed the Johor government to have Jawi scripts in its signage.

Meanwhile, state Gerakan chairman Datuk Dr Teng Hock Nan said signs can be displayed in languages besides Malay, provided the names of the streets have genuine historical value. He said there are several streets and areas that are of historical significance in George Town, whose inner city was listed by Unesco as a World Heritage Site on July 7. “These places should have signages in other languages besides Malay to help remind the public what the area served as in the past. “For example, Carnavon Street is also known in Mandarin as Ta Tian Zhai Jie (Mangrove Road) because many years ago it was a swampy mangrove area,” Teng told a press conference.

‘Postpone privatisation of solid waste management’ IPOH: Perak Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin yesterday called on the federal government to postpone the privatisation of solid waste management in the country as it could lead to higher costs for the people. He also called on the government to review the objectives of the Solid Waste and Public Cleansing Management Act 2007 and study its implementation at state level. “In briefings for state governments, local authorities are asked to pay the concessionaires for solid waste management, cutting of grass and drain cleaning whereas this is the principal work of local authorities. “Local authorities will only be tasked to collect assessment tax and if the price charged by the concessionaires is high, the local authorities will have to increase the tax and this will burden people,” Mohammad Nizar told reporters after officiating the Asia-European Union (EU) Solid Waste Management Conference here yesterday.

He said the act that will come into force at the end of this year would cause local authorities to surrender all collection and disposal of garbage to the concession companies. The postponement of the solid waste management policy and its review needed to be done as there were other ways and means that were more effective and cheaper to do the job. He said although the Solid Waste and Public Cleansing Management Act 2007 was approved by Parliament, it was not really necessary for the federal government to take over solid waste management, especially in states ruled by Pakatan Rakyat. Meanwhile, EU ambassador to Malaysia, Vincent Piket, said the conference, sponsored by the EU, was not to dictate any system to be used by Malaysia in its solid waste management. The conference was only to share European experiences in their dealing with solid and dangerous waste management over the last 50 years, he added. – Bernama

Call to lower voting age to 18 GEORGE TOWN: Bukit Bendera MP Liew Chin Tong has called for the legal voting age of Malaysians to be lowered from 21 to 18 as part of efforts to reform the electoral system. He said in a press statement that the age of voters should be reexamined as those in neighbouring countries like Indonesia, Cambodia,

Thailand and the Philippines can legally cast their ballots from the age of 17 or 18. “Voter registration should be automatic once a Malaysian reaches the legal age of voting. “The election renewal process is crucial to ensure the country has an indisputable democratic system that we can proud of,” he said.