Malaysia, the Brain Drain and Social Injustices

Malaysians residing overseas have likely reached one million in 2010, indicating a serious brain drain from the country, a World Bank official says.

Philip Schellekens, the bank's senior economist for Malaysia, said the brain drain was estimated at a third or equivalent to 335,000 people of the total diaspora estimated.

Conventional wisdom suggests that international migration of the highly skilled from poor to rich countries — or the so-called brain drain phenomenon — threatens development.

But what could be the rationale for the Brain Drain phenomenon? 

Last February, the World Bank conducted an online survey of 200 Malaysians living abroad and found that social injustice is one of the top three reasons behind the country’s brain drain.

Social injustice is a concept relating to the claimed unfairness or injustice of a society in its divisions of rewards and burdens and other incidental inequalities.

The concept is distinct from those of justice in law, which may or may not be considered moral in practice, or from the concept of justice within a coherent ideological system, which focuses on just process rather than on incidental inequalities.

The World Bank also said that Malaysians are only willing to return if the government shifts from race-based to needs-based affirmative action policies.

In its fourth issue of the Malaysia Economic Monitor, the report stated that 60 per cent of the respondents found that social injustice as their main concern to migrate or return-migrate, citing unequal access to scholarships and higher education especially among the younger generation within the non-Bumiputera community.

Of those surveyed, 66 per cent found that lack of career prospects was a major factor and 54 per cent agreed that unattractive salaries as underlying factors in the Malaysian diaspora.

Statistics revealed in the report included a conservative estimate of a one-million strong Malaysian diaspora, largely located in Singapore, Australia, Brunei, Britain, the United States and New Zealand.

Of this, nearly 90% were of ethnic Chinese descent while for the diaspora as a whole, one-third had tertiary education with the rate of the qualified migrating having risen in recent years.

The report added that Singapore was the destination of 57% of those who had left.

Philip Schellekens painted a gloomy picture of the Malaysian brain drain situation today saying that it not only grew rapidly but is likely to intensify, further eroding the country’s already narrow skills base.

Schellekens said that the number of skilled Malaysians living abroad has tripled in the last two decades with two out of every 10 Malaysians with tertiary education opting to leave for either OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries or Singapore.

“Brain drain from Malaysia is likely to intensify in the absence of mitigating actions,” he said at the launch of the World Bank report titled “Malaysia Economic Monitor: Brain Drain”.

The report defined brain drain as the outflow of those with tertiary-level education.

Related article: World Bank: 1m Malaysians live abroad

Malaysia's Brain Drain Hinders its Economic Progress

Beating your meat, flicking the bean: Some facts about masturbation

According to many religion, masturbation is forbidden. In Islam, many ulama' (Islamic scholars) considers it as haraam.

But fact is, most people do it — and yet they worry about doing it either due to their religious faith or out of conscience towards their physical and mental health, as many believe masturbation is unhealthy.

But most people are unwilling to masturbate just because they are embarrassed if they are caught doing it or if other people knew they are doing it.

Nonetheless, there are a lot of myths out there that masturbation is unhealthy, dangerous and so on.

Click on the pic (right) to learn some interesting facts about Masturbation.

Source: Facts About Masturbation (Infographic)

Read the discussion on the topic: here

Slang terms for masturbation

Malaysia's Rich and The Giving Pledge

The Giving Pledge was initiated and made public in 2010 by two of the wealthiest men in the United States, billionaires Warren Buffett and Bill Gates.

It is a campaign to encourage the wealthiest people in the United States to commit to giving the majority of their wealth for philanthropic causes. The campaign specifically targets billionaires and as of December 2010, 57 billionaires in the US have joined this campaign and pledged to give 50% or more of their wealth to charity.

A minimum total of at least $125 billion has been promised from the first 40 donors based on their aggregate wealth as of August 2010.


Go to the Giving Pledge website to see those who have given their pledge.

I made a count on the site today and the pledgers has increased to 59 and the latest person in the list is Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg.

So how about having a Giving Pledge the Malaysian chapter?

A writer from My Sinchew has related this noble cause by a local businessman's effort to initiate a similar philanthropic mission. The plan is to get at least 100 wealthy men in the country to fork out a million ringgit towards a RM100 million medical assistance fund to provide medical assistance to the underprivileged in the society.

If the plan materializes, the businessman said, yearly interests would sum up to around five or six million, and this interest revenue alone could help foot the medical bills of some 500 to 1,000 impoverished patients in the country.

Now, that really sounds like a noble idea.

The only problem, the writer suspects, is how to persuade these filthy rich people to take out RM1 million each? Everyone will come when we talk about making money, but not about digging into our own pockets, he wrote.

Read the whole translated article: Giving Pledge

Actually, this rightly reflects the way Malaysia's rich and famous think of their wealth, the writer sums up.

Well, not entirely so!

Tan at the launch of Berjaya Founder's Day, 26 Feb 2011

In February this year, one of the country's rich and famous, Tan Sri Vincent Tan, the Berjaya Corporation Bhd founder, announced his decision to join “The Giving Pledge” that was initiated by Bill Gates, his wife Melinda and Warren Buffett.

To kick-start his plans, Tan will donate RM20mil this year to various charities that will be announced soon.

Eventually, Tan said, he would like to give away half of his wealth and hopes that it will inspire more wealthy Malaysians to donate money for charity. This pledge was made during an impromptu speech at the launch of the Berjaya Founder’s Day event,

According to a Bernama report, Tan's assets is worth RM2.43bil. He is ranked the 9th richest person in Malaysia and 828th on the Forbes 2011 world billionaire list with a net worth of US$1.25bil (RM3.66bil).

To all the doubting Thomases out there who think his pledge to donate half his fortune is just a publicity stunt, read about why Tan made the pledge: A pledge from the heart

Now, what about the country's other wealthy people? Have they made any announcement to make the pledge?

Below is a list of the nation’s 15 richest personalities and their worth:

Do you think by donating RM1million for a good cause would make them any less poor?

Rank                                                          Net worth (USD Million)

1	Robert Kuok                           (12,500)
2	Ananda Krishnan                  (9,500)
3	Lee Kim Hua                           (6.600)
4	Lee Shin Cheng                       (5,000)
5	Quek Leng Chan                     (4,800)
6	Teh Hong Piow                        (4,700)
7	Yeoh Tiong Lay                        (2,700)
8	Syed Mokhtar AlBukhary     (2,500)
9	Vincent Tan                             (1,250)	1,250	58
10	Tiong Hiew King                     (1,200)
11	Lee Oi Hian/Lee Hau Hian     (900)
12	Azman Hashim                         (785)
13	Lim Kok Thay                           (665)
14	A.K. Nathan                             (600)
15	Mokhzani Mahathir                (560)

A case of mati-hidup-semula in Seberang Jaya

The Resurrection of Lazarus by Vincent van Gogh

A rare medical phenomenon known as the Lazarus Syndrome has now become the talk of (Seberang Jaya) town, in Penang.

Today's theStar reported that a 65-year-old who ‘died’ comes back to life two hours later.

Relating the incident, the man's son, known only as Wei, said he had rushed his father to hospital at about 11am yesterday when he stopped breathing at their home.

“The doctors performed CPR (cardiac pulmonary resuscitation) and pronounced him dead an hour later. We then left for the police station when we received a call from a doctor at about 1.30pm,” Wei said.

They then rushed back to the hospital and saw him being transferred to the CCU (Cardiac Care Unit).

A hospital spokesperson said, “doctors pronounced the man dead, and after monitoring him for almost two hours we noticed that he suddenly began breathing. We then put him on a respirator.”

It is said that the man and his 70-year-old brother had a quarrel outside their house at about 10.30am. The man apparently sustained an injury on his right hand and collapsed shortly after returning home.

Michael Wilkinson was declared dead in 2009

The Lazarus Syndrome is very rare. According to The Telegraph report, there were only 38 recorded cases in the world up to June 2009.

In medical terms the syndrome refers to the spontaneous return of circulation once attempts at resuscitation had failed. In many cases the patient's breathing and heart rate would drop to an extremely low level before returning back to normal.

The syndrome takes its name from the biblical story of Lazarus being raised from the dead by Jesus.

In simple terms the Lazarus Syndrome is a case of mati-hidup-semula or coming back to life after being pronounced dead a few hours (or even a few years) earlier.

Other reads: The Lazarus Syndrome by Rodney Davies (book)

Lazarus Syndrome Q&A

Dead woman moves, breathes

Ian Young spent RM60,000 to help Fatine win visa

The breaking story in the Derby Telegraph

Transsexual bride insists that she loved caretaker Ian

By ed hill ehill@derbytelegraph.co.uk

THE Malaysian transsexual bride who ditched her husband after she received a visa to stay in the UK has explained her decision to leave.

Fatine Young spoke out after her husband Ian told the Derby Telegraph yesterday how the couple split after he spent £12,000 on helping win the visa battle.

But Fatine, 38, has defended her actions, saying she made major sacrifices to move to the UK and live with the school caretaker, whom she claims eventually pushed her away with his behaviour. Speaking from Blackpool,

Fatine said: "In the end he was totally ignoring me. It's horrible when the man you love treats you like that. I've sacrificed my life because of him."

Mr Young admitted he had not treated her as well as he could have done.
The night before she left, Fatine said the couple had a "massive argument", with her husband storming out of the house they shared in Pear Tree, leaving her alone.

"He left me without any money," she said.

Mr Young previously told how he was hounded out of jobs at three Derby schools by angry parents because of his love for Fatine, who was born a man.

The saga left the 32-year-old jobless and homeless, and at one stage he tried to take his own life by downing a bottle of pills.

Mr Young met Fatine while working in Malaysia. The couple first started chatting in a coffee shop but Mr Young did not realise Fatine, who was born Mohammed Fazdil Min Bahari, was a transsexual.

After she told him, the relationship continued. Fatine moved to Derby and the couple tied the knot in a civil ceremony at Derby Register Office in 2009.

They fought for a visa for Fatine after a request was initially turned down by the Home Office, saying she could be jailed if she returned to Malaysia, because Fatine has not had sex-change surgery and homosexuality was illegal there.

Fatine & Young during happier times

Both told the Derby Telegraph how in love they were.

But life became difficult after Mr Young left a number of schools following complaints from parents who disapproved of his lifestyle.

Speaking in yesterday's Telegraph, Mr Young said: "I feel like a fool.

"It was supposed to be the happiest time of my life. Now she won't speak to me and she won't get a divorce."
Fatine admitted she had been ignoring her husband's repeated telephone calls as she did not want to talk to him. But she said there was little chance of reconciliation and she would agree to his requests for a divorce.

She said the matter was in the hands of her solicitor.

"How could we get back together when my husband has said a lot of bad things about me?" she said. "I want to move on with my life.

"I'm living with a friend, who has given me a place to stay and I'm trying my hardest to find work. I loved Ian not just for a visa. I had no friends, no family over here – I was totally dependent on him."

Related news: 'Bride born a man' dumped me after £12K fight for visa

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Transsexual Fatine and hubby go separate ways
'Male' visa bride was 'driven away'

Malaysia's morality has gone down the gutter - Harussani

After more than a week since the surfacing of the sex video implicating opposition leader, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, here we have a statement from the honorable Mufti of Perak. 
This news report is a direct translation from today's Sinar Harian news: Malaysia sudah jadi negara tidak berakhlak: Harussani
KUALA LUMPUR - Perak Mufti, Tan Sri Harussani Zakaria described Malaysia is now a country lagging in morality and condones immoral activities by allowing the recording and pictures of sex acts to be made ​​public through the media.

Harussani said the actions of humiliating a person through the exposure of their sexual acts in a video is illegal in Islam.

"Opening and revealing other people's secret to disgrace them in public are illegal, if you want to demand justice do it in the courts... do not disclose to the public. The country currently happens to be a country that has no moral ... (people) have become immoral, why is it like this? If you want to (seek justice) take it to court, but now even we can't confirm who is in the video, "he said.

Thus he urged all parties to stop raising the issue.

"Please stop (this), stop ... Why do you want to say things other people are ashamed of? Prove it in court if you want to say anything about it, let the court decide.

But certainly it cannot be proven, because the person who made ​​the charge must bring in four witnesses, if not he/she shall be liable to qazaf (false accusation of zina), a sentence of whipping of 80 times, because this (video) is not clear ... I look at the newspapers today, the image of the man in the video is not clear and no one can prove that it is Anwar, " he said.
MY TAKE:
I AM WONDERING IF THE MAJORITY OF THE POLITICALLY INCLINED  MALAYSIANS (on both side of the divide) WOULD HEED TO THIS ADVICE?
I AM ALSO WONDERING IF THE LEARNED MUFTI WANTS TO ISSUE A FATWA (OR EMPHASIZE WHAT SHOULD BE DONE) ON THIS MATTER AS THE 'MORALITY' OF THE COUNTRY IS AT STAKE!
If the morality of the country has gone down the gutter (just like what Haji Harussani has mentioned above, does it not reflect that the ulama' (Islamic scholars and jurist) in the country has failed in their duty?

Just like the case of the poco-poco edict (fatwa), many would just 'make dono' (buat tak tau) or 'make deaf' (buat-buat pekak) to the ruling!
What is the value of a country if its leaders and people are lacking in morals and when advised by the ulama', they either do not pay heed to it or find excuses to spin the matter so that their political interest can be guarded. 
Do pray tell?
Related article: 

Vedio seks bukan bukti zina – TS Harussani Zakaria