Malaysian General Election PRU/GE 14 Lesson 6 – State Elections – Vote for Party candidate with Local and state issues in the Manifesto.

No Candidate for state assembly elections should campaign for National issues as the Candidates who are contesting for Parliament seats will campaign for National Issues

State assembly elections do not affect the Election of Parliament and composition of the Federal Government. State assemblymen and the political party must have a good track

Local issues are

Delivery of basic amen ties  - for the residential area you live -  Clean piped  water , uninterrupted supply of Electricity , Roads in good condition , Regular Rubbish collection  ,Proper Maintenance of drains , Pruning of trees , Local residential security , Recycling Bins in accessible locations  , Good traffic management system , Proper road signage , Communal Rubbish bins for proper disposal of large rubbish, Covered Walkways for Pedestrians , Covered bus stops , Traffic lights and zebra crossing for pedestrians , Crime watch cameras , regular grass cutting of overgrown open spaces , Jogging paths ,Parks and playgrounds with functioning equipment , Community centers free from racial , religious or political interferences , Land to build house of worship ,etc.

So far the previous BN state governments are better in this department then the present PH State government which is more focus on Saving money than spending money to make the life better for the residents

Read here why roads are in Bad conditios

Read here irregular rubbish collection

Read here bad traffic and chaos

Read here unkept drains

And the list can go on and on

O No No Obanma cashes in on Wall street

Obama’s $400,000 Wall Street Speech Is Completely In Character


Ask all the bankers he jailed for fraud.
By Zach Carter


We Are Sorry,

The rumors are true: Former President Barack Obama will receive $400,000 to speak at a health care conference organized by the Wall Street firm Cantor Fitzgerald.

It should not be a surprise. This unseemly and unnecessary cash-in fits a pattern of bad behavior involving the financial sector, one that spans Obama’s entire presidency. That governing failure convinced millions of his onetime supporters that the president and his party were not, in fact, playing for their team, and helped pave the way for President Donald Trump. Obama’s Wall Street payday will confirm for many what they have long suspected: that the Democratic Party is managed by out-of-touch elites who do not understand or care about the concerns of ordinary Americans. It’s hard to fault those who come to this conclusion.

Obama refused to prosecute the rampant fraud behind the 2008 Wall Street collapse, despite inking multibillion-dollar settlement after multibillion-dollar settlement with major firms over misconduct ranging from foreclosure fraud to rigging energy markets to tax evasion. In some cases, big banks even pleaded guilty to felonies, but Obama’s Justice Department allowed actual human bankers to ride into the sunset. Early in his presidency, Obama vowed to spend up to $100 billion to help struggling families avert foreclosure. Instead, the administration converted the relief plan into a slush fund for big banks, as top traders at bailed-out firms were allowed to collect six-figure bonuses on the taxpayers’ dime.

Nothing forced Obama to govern this way. Had he truly believed that prosecuting bankers for obvious criminal fraud would cause an economic collapse, Obama would, presumably, have tried to radically reshape the financial sector. He did not. His administration’s finance-friendly policies damaged the economic recovery and generated a new cohort of Trump voters. As Nate Cohn of The New York Times has demonstrated, nearly one-fourth of Obama’s white working-class supporters in 2012 flipped for Trump in 2016. Racism and misogyny were surely part of Trump’s appeal, but not all two-time Obama voters turned to Trump out of bigotry alone.

It’s easier for Democrats to denounce Trump supporters as morally unworthy individuals than to consider whether governing failures in the Obama era contributed to Trump’s popularity. In the final years of his presidency, Obama made clear that he wanted to be remembered as a great Democratic reformer — a leader who expanded access to health care and embodied the humane, egalitarian side of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson. But the disconnect between this progressive vision and his Wall Street record is not trivial. The Obama foreclosure plan hurt families. Refusing to punish financial crime has encouraged more of it. Workers are still digging out from the economic wreckage caused by too-big-to-fail banks in 2008, and those banks are bigger today than they were during the meltdown. Wealth accrues to a tiny population of bank executives and shareholders instead of flowing to households. Society is more unequal, and the prospects for progress depend on a financial sector fraught with unnecessary systemic risk.

This risk is not confined to the Trump presidency. Obama once called economic inequality “the defining challenge of our time,” but Democratic leaders have been steadfastly aligning their own personal fortunes with the very elites the system is rigged to favor. Throughout her 2016 presidential campaign, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was dogged by the millions of dollars in speaking fees she courted from major financial institutions after leaving the State Department. Her primary opponent, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), mocked a Clinton speech to Goldman Sachs, saying it must have been a “world-shattering” talk “probably written in Shakespearean prose.” She never had a good answer to questions about these talks during debates, and eventually she resorted to invoking the twisted logic of the Supreme Court’s infamous Citizens United decision in an effort to deflect accusations of corruption.

Clinton and her husband were worth over $100 million at the time. But a few million dollars between elites is not considered that big a deal in the Washington social scene. The money is an instrument of influence, rather than wealth ― a way of maintaining status, of exercising informal, unofficial, but very real power. It is a relationship incompatible with small-d democratic principles.

Sanders was not able to derail Clinton’s primary campaign with this critique. And die-hard Democrats will doubtless find ways to excuse or overlook Obama’s decision to follow in Clinton’s buckraking footsteps. Professional Democrats have admired Obama for many reasons despite his financial policy failures, and a few hundred grand will not make them reconsider this judgment. But the Goldman Sachs issue was a serious problem for Clinton during the general election, feeding right-wing narratives that she and her husband were fundamentally corrupt (not to be confused with the fairy tales about her killing Vince Foster and four Americans in Benghazi).

Obama isn’t running for office again, but his sellout sends even uglier signals to the electorate. Clinton had very limited policy power over the financial sector during her time at the State Department. Obama, on the other hand, had plenty. Voters could be forgiven for seeing a president cash out to Wall Street at the end of his term and concluding that maybe he wasn’t immune to those considerations when he was making policy in office.

“Regardless of venue or sponsor, President Obama will be true to his values, his vision, and his record,” Obama spokesman Eric Schultz told HuffPost in a written statement. “He recently accepted an invitation to speak at a health care conference in September, because, as a president who successfully passed health insurance reform, it’s an issue of great importance to him. With regard to this or any speech involving Wall Street sponsors, I’d just point out that in 2008, Barack Obama raised more money from Wall Street than any candidate in history ― and still went on to successfully pass and implement the toughest reforms on Wall Street since FDR.”

It is impossible to know what the 2010 Wall Street reform law would have looked like had Obama not received loads of campaign money from the financial sector. Maybe he would have broken up the banks. Maybe he would have reinstated Glass-Steagall. Campaign finance regulations — which the vast majority of Democratic voters support — would be unnecessary if political leaders were not influenced by campaign contributions. 



What’s most baffling about Obama’s $400,000 payday is the fact that he doesn’t need the money. He and his wife, former first lady Michelle Obama, reportedly received $65 million from Penguin Random House for their memoirs. He is an excellent writer who has already written two best-selling books, and he’ll receive a handsome $200,000 pension from the federal government every year for the rest of his life. Several generations of Obamas will be financially secure. His legacy is not nearly as safe.

Dummy diplomacy: North Korean weapons displayed during parade are FAKE and their sunglasses aren't even combat ready

On April 15, North Korea held massive military parade in Pyongyang in a bid to show off its supposed strength

The parade featured 'special operations commandos' bearing RPGs and assault rifles among other weapons 

But a US analyst and former intelligence offier who looked at pictures says that many of the arms are fake

Michael Pregent said: ''This was more about sending a message than being combat effective' 
One example were cylinders that looked like large rifles, but are actually 'faulty' bullet magazines 

He also doubts that the AK-47s are even loaded since North Korea is said to have a shortage of ammo  

By Ariel Zilber For Dailymail.com 





North Korea's soldiers mostly carry fake weapons during their mass-scale parades, a former US intelligence officer has said.

Michael Pregent believes many of the arms flaunted by menacing-looking North Korean troops during the parade are dummies, and claims even their sunglasses wouldn't be fit for combat.

Pregent was asked to look at photographs from an April 15 military parade in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang. 

'This was more about sending a message than being combat effective,' Pregent told Fox News, who now serves as an adjunct fellow at the conservative think-tank, the Hudson Institute.

Images from an April 15 military parade in Pyongyang show what appear to be North Korean 'commandos' carrying AK-47 assault rifles with attached grenade-launchers. But they are really 'helical' magazines designed to store bullets in a spiral shape

The soldiers seen above displaying rocket-propelled grenades during the parade were most likely given toy missiles 'because Kim Jong-Un doesn't want them to launch one at the viewing stand,' according to Michael Pregent, a former US Army intelligence officer

Then there are the projectiles that the troops attach to the end of their rifles. Pregent says that these 'weapons' are 'laughable' because 'you can see the plastic is over the muzzle'

Other troops marching appear to be holding silver-plated rifles (like the one held by the soldier standing to the left of Kim Jong-Un), but Pregent believes 'these are most likely painted'

According to Pregent, the sunglasses worn by the 'special ops commandos' are regular, flat-face frames that offer little protection for the eyes. Soldiers in Western countries use specially tailored 'ballistic safety glasses' that wrap around the head

The parade was held to mark the 105th birthday of North Korea's founder, Kim Il-sung, the late grandfather of the country's current ruler, Kim Jong-Un.

Images from the parade show what appear to be North Korean 'commandos' carrying AK-47 assault rifles with attached grenade-launchers.

But Pregent says that the objects seen affixed to the rifles are really 'helical' magazines designed to store bullets in a spiral shape.

Pregent says that these magazines are often faulty since they frequently jam.

The parade was held to mark the 105th birthday of North Korea's founder, Kim Il-sung, the late grandfather of the country's current ruler, Kim Jong-Un

North Korea's large-scale military parades and weapons displays are intended for propaganda purposes since the arms carried by the troops are largely fake, according to a US military expert

A North Korean navy truck carries the 'Pukkuksong' submarine-launched ballistic missile during a military parade in Pyongyang on April 15

He also doubts that the AK-47s are even loaded since North Korea is believed to have serious shortages of domestically produced ammunition.

Pregent says many of the accessories worn by the troops are also far short of military-grade.

The sunglasses worn by the 'special ops commandos' are regular, flat-face frames that offer little protection for the eyes.

Soldiers in Western countries use specially tailored 'ballistic safety glasses' that wrap around the head.

Then there are the projectiles that the troops attach to the end of their rifles.

Pregent says that these 'weapons' are 'laughable' because 'you can see the plastic is over the muzzle.'

Though he concedes that North Korea may have a substantial RPG capability, Pregent says that the soldiers on display during the parade were most likely given toy missiles 'because Kim Jong-Un doesn't want them to launch one at the viewing stand.'

Other troops marching appear to be holding silver-plated rifles, but Pregent believes 'these are most likely painted.'  

We’re not a part of Somalia, Mr. Trump — and don’t belong in your ban

Republic of Somaliland

Jamhuriyadda Somaliland  (Somali)^[1]
جمهورية أرض الصومال (Arabic)
Jumhūrīyat Arḍ aṣ-Ṣūmāl

Somaliland

We’re not a part of Somalia, Mr. Trump — and don’t belong in your ban
March 27, 2017 | Published by: Shabakadda Wararka

Read here more on Somaliland

By Saad Ali Shire, Somaliland’s minister of foreign affairs and international cooperation
Amid the discourse, debate and dissent over President Trump’s emerging foreign-policy agenda, there is one thing on which most would agree: The new administration will not be bound by conventional wisdom. Such a path has both peril and promise, but for the Republic of Somaliland, challenging diplomatic conventions has been a mainstay as we have pursued recognition as an independent, sovereign and rightful member of the international community. The executive order – suspending travel from six countries, including Somalia, to the United States brings light to our enduring cause yet also poses threats to our progress.

By most measures, Somaliland is an independent nation — according to the Economist, it “ticks almost all the boxes of statehood” — albeit one with a complicated history. A former British protectorate, Somaliland achieved full independence from Britain in 1960 and subsequently united with Somalia, thereby creating the Somali Republic. In 1991, at the height of a chaotic and bloody civil war in Somalia, the Republic of Somaliland reclaimed its independence, and has since enjoyed self-governance and freedom.
With the collapse of Somalia’s governing institutions, civil unrest and terrorist attacks dominated global attention over the years, requiring vast resources from the United States and other nations. Somaliland focused on building strong state institutions, maintaining peace within our borders and creating a sustainable economy with comparatively minuscule foreign assistance.


Through these efforts, Somaliland has remained at peace and serves as a model for others. Our government mints its own currency and issues its own passports, our military and police are firmly in control of our territory, and our private sector produces modest but respectable economic growth. We have held numerous elections and will elect a new president later this year. We are a reliable partner to the United States and the paragon of a Muslim-majority country that celebrates democracy. Yet without acknowledgment that these conditions in no way resemble those plaguing Somalia, the Trump administration’s travel ban will prevent our citizens from entering the United States.
This dilemma typifies the precariousness of Somaliland’s unresolved legal status. Our citizens are subjected to restrictions imposed on Somalia, which regrettably remains a haven for terrorist organizations. In contrast, there have been no acts of terrorism in Somaliland since 2008. From our capital, Hargeisa, Mogadishu seems a million miles away, yet its circumstances and other nations’ policies affect our daily lives.

Relieving Somaliland of these unjust impediments to our progress would benefit not just our nation, but also the United States. Greater international recognition of Somaliland, led by the United States, would incentivize better governance and economic self-reliance elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa, as well as positively contribute to global security. Ironically, at the recent meeting in Washington of the Global Coalition to Counter ISIS, Somalia’s representative had a seat at the table but Somaliland’s voice was absent. This was a missed opportunity, as Somaliland’s stability and success in curbing the threat of violent extremism should be a strategic asset of the coalition.

Regrettably, the travel ban’s most harmful and lasting consequence will be the disruption of ties between our citizens. If the ban survives, Somaliland residents will not be able to travel to the United States to visit family, pursue educational advancement or strengthen commercial ties between our two nations. In particular, dozens of our students are realizing their dreams of educational advancement in elite American universities today. As our young people come from a region that can benefit tremendously from skilled engineers, doctors and administrators, the opportunity to study in the United States provides them with the knowledge and training necessary to serve their communities upon their return. Presently, nearly 100 students from Somaliland are attending Harvard, Yale, Brown, Columbia, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Amherst, Swarthmore and other distinguished colleges, many having graduated from the Abaarso School, a remarkable institution founded by an American who urges these young people to serve as ambassadors between our two nations. Yet these students cannot go home if they wish to return to the United States and finish their studies. And Somalilanders who have defied overwhelming odds and have college acceptance letters in hand will not be able to matriculate without some relief from the travel ban. This month, Canada’s Globe and Mail reported on the case of Shukri Ali, a Somaliland student accepted to Wellesley College. “I feel lucky that I’ve been accepted,” Ali said. “But I am also sad that I might not be able to start my college education this year.”

To address these challenges, my government is seeking an exemption from the executive order and is encouraging the United States to take steps toward the recognition of Somaliland as an independent member of the international community. Upending the conventional wisdom in this way would allow Trump to turn an unintended consequence into an opportunity and acknowledge that in the eyes of the United States, sovereignty is conferred — and partnerships are forged — through sustained democratic governance, the promotion of economic opportunities, and an enduring commitment to peace and security.

From Sarawak report - Shocking Case Shows What Najib Ought Really Be Doing About Religious Schools...

On the day that the Prime Minister’s Office proudly announced that Najib was going to hand RM80 million of taxpayers’ money out to religious schools it emerged that an 11 year old boy, who had been routinely flogged by a bullying and plainly unqualified staff member (a convicted felon) in such a place, had died of his ghastly injuries.

It is one of the most troubling and distressing stories this writer has encountered about Malaysia. What has Najib said about it and why is he handing cash, no strings attached, to institutions that appear to be under-monitored when it comes to the protection and education of the most innocent and vulnerable in society?


Of this amount, he said, RM30 million was allocated for coordinating and developing tahfiz education through the National Tahfiz Education Policy (DPTN), the first of its kind given by the government for religious education….

“The handing out of allocations involved 819 recipients representing pondok schools, SMARs and of tahfiz institutions from across the country. [Malaysiakini]

Officials may say ‘no comment’ on the particular case, whilst a doubtless lengthy investigation and legal case drags on. However, the school ought be closed immediately forthwith. That boy didn’t flog himself to death and the rest of the pupils are not in a place of safety if what happened to him went permitted and unreported.

Yet, such matters of basic governance, the protection of the weak and the proper education of all the nation’s children to live in a modern world were as far as possible from Najib’s mind when he handed out his big fat pre-election bribe to predominantly PAS associated institutions in the hope of influencing votes.

The money was vaguely allocated to improvement programmes, but according to the announcement is being distributed directly to these schools, which are generally privately owned.  The purpose was to please voters from a party that BN is seeking to lure over to its side after years of PAS opposition to such corrupt practices.

What a terrible price has been paid by this boy and his family for this turning of a blind eye to how such schools are run, whilst encouraging their spread and private ownership with state handouts. Just to read the awful details of this case is to make any parent want to cry:


The 11-year-old student, whose two legs were amputated due to suspected physical abuse by an assistant warden at a religious school in Johor Baru, has died…Mohamad Thaqif Amin Mohd Gaddafi was undergoing treatment at the Hospital Sultan Ismail, where he was in the high dependency ward. Yesterday, it was reported that the boy might lose his arm as well…

The boy, who was in a comatose state, had his legs amputated after the blood cells and tissues were destroyed by bacterial infection…His right hand had also turned black due to the same infection, while blood clots appeared on his left shoulder.

The boy had in his diary reportedly detailed his suffering at the school and prayed his parents would allow him to be transferred from the religious school. The school assistant warden, who has been remanded over the case, is a convicted felon who served 15 months in jail for theft.

Influence buying in PAS

Religious schools are good business for their owners, particularly if they are willing to hire dangerous cut-price staff. Many of such institutions are owned by influential members of PAS.  The party has protested that Sarawak Report has reported the widespread perception in Malaysia that Najib is courting it with public money.  However, handing fat cheques with no real strings attached to such institutions is just one of the ways that Najib is seen by those who have left the party as attempting to buy influence.

Take for example this occasion back in 2015.  Ashraf Wajdi Dusuki, who can be seen handing out the whopping RM235,000.00 cheque below is the minister in the PM’s Office tasked with overseeing the distribution of such handouts, according to former PAS members.

Nice fat cheque for the privately owned school business of the Terengganu PAS Chief Commisioner?

Nice fat RM235,000 cheque for the privately owned school business of the Terengganu PAS Chief Commisioner?

This unprecedented handout was just before the fateful PAS Annual Meeting that agreed to break the party from the opposition PR coalition and the recipient of  Ashraf’s cheque was the Madrasah Darul Bayan, owned by the PAS Terengganu Chief Commisioner Satiful Bahri. The cheque was received at this public ceremony by the Commissioner’s representative.

Did PAS ask about the origin of the money the school received? 

Did PAS worry about the origin of the money the school received?

Opposition politicians are noting the simlar apparently targeted timing of this latest announcement, just before the key PAS General Assembly starting 29th April, which will decide whether to finally sever ties with the opposition PKR and Bersatu, thereby providing BN with a handy split opposition at the upcoming election.

They liken it to PAS being lured to commit electoral suicide for the benefit of Najib.

PAS may not like Sarawak Report reporting on these matters and the concerns of former members and other opposition parties. But, since a boy has now died at one of these schools the government priority ought not to be to just hand out money to these institutions, but to send in squads of inspectors and proper qualified professionals to check they are being run safely and properly.

That is where RM80 million could be usefully spent and it is the right and proper job of government.  Vote buying is NOT how taxpayers money ought be spent.

Seychelles: Will the Seychellois Co-Habit or Mutually Destruct?

By Peter Fabricius

 ( The Seychelles is an archipelago of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean, off East Africa. It's home to numerous beaches, coral reefs and nature reserves, as well as rare animals such as giant Aldabra tortoises. Mahé, a hub for visiting the other islands, is home to capital Victoria. It also has the mountain rainforests of Morne Seychellois National Park and beaches, including Beau Vallon and Anse Takamaka.

• Capital:
  Victoria
• Currency:
  Seychellois rupee
• Population:
  92,900 (2015) )
• 
  

While Africa's attention was focused on election-rigging in Gabon and Zambia, on the mainland, a rather rare victory for democracy on a tiny speck of land in the middle of the Indian Ocean - 1 800 km due east of Mombasa - went barely noticed.

In Seychelles, 62 939 of the idyllic island's 71 932 eligible voters quietly turfed out the Parti Lepep (PL - People's Party) which, under different guises, had held sway since 1977. It was then, just one year after independence from the United Kingdom (UK), that Marxist Prime Minister Albert René ousted centre-rightist president James Mancham in a coup, and quickly imposed a one-party Marxist state in the classic post-independence manner.

For a while, Seychelles became a microcosmic caricature of post-independence Africa in other ways too, including several abortive mutinies and coups. In 1981, one was led by the notorious British-Irish 'Mad' Mike Hoare and his motley band of mercenaries from South Africa and elsewhere, masquerading as a rugby club dubbed the Ancient Order of Frothblowers.

The attempt failed because one of the mercenaries accidentally got into the 'something to declare' queue on arrival at the Mahé airport, and his rifle was discovered in his suitcase. The coup attempt was backed by the South African apartheid government and, some say, Washington. It was not the first time, of course, that Pretoria - with suspected United States approval - intervened to try to topple a Marxist government.

Meanwhile, several enemies of René were being mysteriously murdered in exile.

But, as time passed, René's Marxism mellowed and moderated and Seychelles settled into normality.

Like many other leaders of one-party states, René was forced by international pressure to allow multi-party democracy after the Cold War ended. In the country's first electoral contest, in 1993, René easily beat Mancham, who had just returned from exile, in the presidential election. René's Seychelles People's Progressive Front (SPPF) - the predecessor of the PL - trounced Mancham's Democratic Party (DP) in the legislative elections.

This was to be the basic pattern for the next 23 years, though Mancham and the DP meanwhile lost ground to other opposition leaders and René retired in 2004, to be replaced as SPPF leader and national president by his deputy, James Michel.

In May 2015, Michel won a successive third term, though by the narrowest of margins, against Wavel Ramkalawan, leader of the then main opposition, the Seychelles National Party (SNP). And the PL already enjoyed a virtual monopoly in Parliament, because the SNP had boycotted the 2011 legislative elections, claiming they would not be fair.

But that comfortable position for Michel changed last week. The SNP and four smaller parties had done what African opposition parties seldom do. They joined forces to form the Linyon Demokratik Seselwa (LDS) - the Seychelles Democratic Alliance.

And in last week's elections, with an 87% turnout, the LDS won 19 seats to the 14 won by the LP, giving it a clear majority. LDS leader Roger Mancienne called it a 'historic victory.' Michel and the LP graciously conceded defeat and Michel promised to work with the LDS-controlled National Assembly. Yet Seychelles is embarking on what promises to be a challenging new chapter of 'co-habitation' politics, as Claude Morel, the country's High Commission to South Africa describes it.

If the LDS election manifesto is to be believed, the new majority party aims to make the island state something of a model democracy. Seychelles now has an ambiguous democratic status. Freedom House, for example, rates it only as 'partly free' - mainly because of the virtual monopoly of power the LP has enjoyed for four decades. This has enabled it to get a lock grip on much of the economy, state institutions and the media, though Morel insists the 'Seychelles media is free and there are more anti-government press publishing than pro-government'.

But the LDS, in any case, has promised to boost the powers of Parliament considerably to transform it from a 'symbolic' institution, as Mancienne has put it, to one which properly does its job of holding the executive far more accountable than it has been so far.

This includes tripling Parliament's work schedule from the current, rather relaxed, single sitting a week to three, including much more time to grill the president and ministers. It intends introducing a Freedom of Information act to force the executive to be more open.

It has also promised to make Parliament itself more transparent and democratic, even allowing private citizens to participate in debates and broadcasting both Parliamentary and committee proceedings on a new Parliamentary TV channel.

It also promises substantial economic reforms. At first glance, Seychelles lives up to its idyllic image - not only for tourists, but also for locals. Its flourishing tourism and fishing industries, increasingly supplemented by agriculture, boosted its GDP per capita to US$15 476 last year, making it the highest - by quite a long chalk - in Africa. (South Africa's was US$5 691.)

Yet some might say, with a population of barely 93 000, that's not too difficult. And it's also true that although Seychelles has been governed for four decades by an ostensibly socialist party, it's officially still the most unequal country in the world, economically speaking. Its Gini Coefficient, at 65.8, is the highest of the 137 nations measured by the United Nations Development Programme, worse even than South Africa's 63.1.

The Michel government, though, has been tackling the inequality with reforms to open up the economy, some of them conditions for receiving loans from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank since 2008, when mounting external debts and the global economic crisis pushed the country into default.

Last year, the World Bank lent it US$5 million specifically to help spread wealth to the 'bottom 40%' of the population, as the bank's task team leader Rafael Muñoz Moreno put it, while also praising the country's 'good performance in reducing poverty'. He said: 'Social indicators are impressive and the country has achieved most of the Millennium Development Goals, especially for education, health, poverty eradication, and the environment.'

Nonetheless the LDS promises to attack that inequality more vigorously, boosting education, especially in sought-after skills; replacing expatriates with Seychellois in skilled jobs, professions and management; protecting small businesses against monopolies; reserving some parts of business for Seychellois entrepreneurs and ensuring banks lower interest rates and pursue 'more affirmative leadership action.'

All of this sounds rather more socialist than the socialists and rather utopian, though it is, of course, only an election promise.

And Morel cautions that the LDS-controlled Parliament 'will only have powers in terms of legislation and checks and balances on the government and it may influence budget spending, but cannot directly change economic policy, government ministers, or any other aspect of government policy.

'It is therefore comparable to the situation the USA faces when Barack Obama, a Democrat President co-exists with a majority Republican Congress.'

That comparison raised the big question whether cohabitation will invigorate the island nation's rather sleepy political debate to the benefit of all, or cause gridlock between the executive and the legislature, which will help no one. If anyone cares to train their telescopes that far out into the Indian Ocean, it should be instructive to discover how the new dispensation plays out.

Peter Fabricius, ISS Consultant

You’ll Soon Be Able To Find Blue Wine Among The Bottles Of Reds And White! Yes BLUE!

If the question “red or white?” leads to an internal philosophical debate, then prepare for a whole new option: blue. You heard me.

Blue wine exists! 

This is thanks to the geniuses at Gik, who recently changed the happy hour game in Spain by launching blue wine there first, in their home country. 

Tired of the wine culture they’d been exposed to, where people care more about what they’ve learned about wine versus actually enjoying it, their goal is simple: to have people sit back and sip. Classified as a chilled, sweet wine, it’s made from a mixture of both red and white wine grapes. Don’t you just love when your friends get along?

The best thing about this wine? At only $11 (RM48.00)  per bottle, it keeps your wallet happy while still giving you the beautiful wine buzz you’ve all grown to love with the same ABV as a normal 750-milliliter bottle.

I’m already picturing all of the Instagrammed shots of a bottle of this lined up next to a bottle of red and white. And while there’s no release date set for Gik wine yet, I’ve already picked the wines I’d pose it with.

No report yet on whether the wine will turn your teeth blue, but at 11.5% alcohol, there’s no way you’ll feel blue drinking this vino