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.
KINGPIN: Marset allegedly laundered the proceeds of his drug enterprise by purchasing and sponsoring professional soccer teams and even put himself in the starting lineups Notorious Latin American narco trafficker Sebastian Marset, who eluded police for years, was handed over to US authorities after his arrest on Friday in Bolivia. Marset, a Uruguayan national who was on the US most-wanted list, was passed to agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration at Santa Cruz airport in Bolivia, then put on a US airplane, Bolivian state television showed. “The arrest and deportation were carried out pursuant to a court order issued by the US justice system,” Bolivian Minister of Government Marco Antonio Oviedo told reporters. The alleged kingpin was arrested in an upscale neighborhood of Santa
ACTIONABLE ADVICE: The majority of chatbots tested provided guidance on weapons, tactics and target selections, with Perplexity and Meta AI deemed to be the least safe From school shootings to synagogue bombings, leading artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots helped researchers plot violent attacks, according to a study published on Wednesday that highlighted the technology’s potential for real-world harm. Researchers from the nonprofit watchdog Center for Countering Digital Hate and CNN posed as 13-year-old boys in the US and Ireland to test 10 chatbots, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity, Deepseek and Meta AI. Eight of the chatbots assisted the make-believe attackers in more than half the responses, providing advice on “locations to target” and “weapons to use” in an attack, the study said. The chatbots had become a “powerful accelerant for
SCANDAL: Other images discovered earlier show Andrew bent over a female and lying across the laps of a number of women, while Mandelson is pictured in his underpants A photograph of former British prince Andrew and veteran politician Peter Mandelson sitting in bathrobes alongside late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was unearthed on Friday in previously published documents. The image is believed to be the first known photograph of the two men with Epstein. They are currently engulfed in scandal in the UK over their ties to their mutual friend. The undated photograph, first reported by ITV News, shows King Charles III’s disgraced brother and former British ambassador to the US sitting barefoot outside on a wooden deck. They appear to have mugs with a US flag on them
Since the war in the Middle East began nearly two weeks ago, the telephone at Ron Hubbard’s bomb shelter company in Texas has not stopped ringing. Foreign and US clients are rushing to buy his bunkers, seeking refuge in case of air raids, nuclear fallout or apocalypse. With the US and Israel pounding Iran, and Tehran retaliating with strikes across the region, Hubbard has seen demand for his product soar, mostly from Gulf nation customers in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. “You can imagine how many people are thinking: ‘I wish I had a bomb shelter,’” Hubbard, 63, said in
RSS