Malaysian leaders vowed to wage political war against former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim, calling him a "traitor" at the annual ruling party congress yesterday and saying there would be no room for him to mount a comeback.
The attacks underscored the determination of the United Malays National Organization (UNMO) to quickly stop any support for Anwar, who was unexpectedly freed from prison this month six years after being fired by then-leader Mahathir Mohamad and then jailed.
Hishamuddin Hussein, leader of the UMNO Youth wing, said that the tens of thousands of demonstrators Anwar had led against Mahathir had menaced this Southeast Asian country's stability and that the party should never take him back.
"UMNO Youth will never allow traitors to return to the party's fold," Hishamuddin said in a speech.
"Let us not forget that this traitor once destroyed our unity, smeared the country's image and destroyed the economy with violent street protests."
Delegates applauded in the chamber and thousands of ordinary members chanted "Yes! Yes!" as they watched on large-screen monitors set up in the convention center corridors.
"He begged for foreign intervention to fulfill his narrow political ambitions," Hishamuddin declared. "We will not allow this traitor to be given any room to destroy the party for a second time."
Asked later by reporters if UMNO Youth was declaring war on Anwar, Hishamuddin responded: "Nothing has changed. He declared war on us when he left and formed Keadilan," an opposition party headed by Anwar's wife.
Despite Anwar, the congress is expected to be a triumph for Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who led the governing coalition to triumph in March elections, capturing 90 percent of the seats in Parliament. Abdullah speaks to the full congress today.
Khairy Jamaluddin, the up-and-coming UMNO Youth deputy chief and Abdullah's son-in-law, said that "lines had been drawn" in the weeks since visited Anwar just after his release, raising speculation of a secret deal between Abdullah and Anwar. Both men deny it.
"Opinions have hardened on both sides," Khairy told reporters.
"As far as we are concerned, for those who have gone against the party, there is no place for them in UMNO, and we will fight them politically," Khairy said.
Anwar, 57, was freed from prison Sept. 2 after Malaysia's highest court overturned his conviction for sodomy, sparing him at least five more years in custody.
The court later upheld a separate corruption conviction, which Anwar had already served, leaving him with a criminal record that bars him from running for office until April 2008.
Showcasing phallus-shaped portable shrines and pink penis candies, Japan’s annual fertility festival yesterday teemed with tourists, couples and families elated by its open display of sex. The spring Kanamara Matsuri near Tokyo features colorfully dressed worshipers carrying a trio of giant phallic-shaped objects as they parade through the street with glee. The festival, as legend has it, honors a local blacksmith in the Edo Period (1603-1868) who forged an iron dildo to break the teeth of a sharp-toothed demon inhabiting a woman’s vagina that had been castrating young men on their wedding nights. A 1m black steel phallus sits in the courtyard of
HIGH HOPES: The power source is expected to have a future, as it is not dependent on the weather or light, and could be useful for places with large desalination facilities A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source. The possibility of generating power from osmosis — when water molecules pass from a less salty solution to a more salty one — has long been known. However, actually generating energy from that has proved more complicated, in part due the difficulty of designing the membrane through which the molecules pass. Engineers in Fukuoka, Japan, and their private partners think they might have cracked it, and have opened what is only the world’s second osmotic power plant. It generates
JAN. 1 CLAUSE: As military service is voluntary, applications for permission to stay abroad for over three months for men up to age 45 must, in principle, be granted A little-noticed clause in sweeping changes to Germany’s military service policy has triggered an uproar after it emerged that the law requires men aged up to 45 to get permission from the armed forces before any significant stay abroad, even in peacetime. The legislation, which went into effect on Jan. 1 aims to bolster the military and demands all 18-year-old men fill out a questionnaire to gauge their suitability to serve in the armed forces, but stops short of conscription. If the “modernized” model fails to pull in enough recruits, parliament will be compelled to discuss the reintroduction of compulsory service, German
Hundreds of Filipinos and tourists flocked to a sun-bleached field north of Manila yesterday, on Good Friday, to witness one of the country’s most blood-soaked displays of religious fervor, undeterred by rising fuel prices. Scores of bare-chested flagellants with covered faces walked barefoot through the dusty streets of Pampanga Province’s San Fernando as they flogged their backs with bamboo whips in the scorching heat. Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists said they saw devotees deliberately puncturing their skin with glass shards attached to a small wooden paddle to ensure their bleeding during the ritual, a way to atone for sins and seek miracles from
RSS