No. 5100 PP 2644/12/2010 (025832)
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Telling it as it is
on
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September 23, 2010
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Bell tolls for eight
greedy townoffcials
LOS ANGELES:
Eight officials from
an impoverished Californian town
were arrested Tuesday on charges
of paying themselves vast salaries at
the expense of local taxpayers.
The eight, including former mu-
nicipal manager of Bell just south of
here, are accused of using roughly
US$5.5 million of public money to
benefit themselves, through illicit
loans.
“This was calculated greed and
theft accomplished by greed and
secrecy,” said District Attorney
SteveCooley. Investigators said they
used a battering ramat the home of
Mayor Oscar Hernandez, 63, after
he refused to come to the door.
“There was, let’s say slowness in
coming to his door,” said Cooley.
Bell is a small working class Latino
suburban town about 10km south
of central Los Angeles. It is one of
the poorest municipalities in Los
Angeles county.
But while local people went
hungry, townmanager Robert Rizzo
paid himself US$787,000 last year
– nearly twice as much as US
President Barack Obama – even
though his town only has 38,000
residents, prosecutors allege.
Police chief Randy Adams was
earning US$457,000 a year, almost
double what the head of the Los
Angeles Police Department gets,
while Rizzo’s former assistant,
Angela Spaccia, was on US$336,000
a year.
Last week California attorney
general Edmund Brown announced
legal action “to recover the excess
salaries that Bell officials awarded
themselves and toensure their future
pensions are reduced to a
reasonable amount”.
The officials were charged with
fraud, civil conspiracy, waste of
public funds and breach of fiduciary
duty. – AFP
... in Entertainment today
Tackling honour killings
Bollywood raises awareness on this
despicable crime in new filmAakrosh,
starring Ajay Devgn and Bipasha Basu
page 18
Evils
of
ignorance
P
UTRAJAYA:
Islamophobia is a
serious issuewhich is caused
by lack of understanding and
knowledge among believers
of different religions in theworld,
PrimeMinister Datuk Seri Najib
Abdul Razak said yesterday.
“The root cause of all these
misunderstanding, misapprehension
and conflict is ignorance. Because,
without understanding and
>PM: It’s the root ofmisunderstanding,
misapprehension and confict between religions
Golden
treat ...
Filipino chef
Angelito Araneta
Jr puts on show
his creation of
a 24-carat gold
coveredmooncake
garnishedwith
.10-carat artifcial
diamonds at
Polytechnic
University of the
Philippines in
Manila yesterday.
Themooncake, a
traditional Chinese
treat eaten during
theMid-Autumn
Festival which fell
yesterday, is worth
80,500 pesos
(US$1,830). It’s
just the thing for
thosewith a sweet
gold tooth to sink
into. The festival
is celebratedwith
mooncakes of
various fllings and
lantern parades.
knowledge, there can never be
goodwill and understanding,” he said.
Najib said as such, the committee
to promote understanding and
harmony among the different
religions inMalaysia, whichwas
chaired byDatuk Ilani Isahak, was an
important mechanism to address this.
“The very fact that you appreciate
one another means you have a strong
basis to establish a strong nation
calledMalaysia,” he said at a lunch
organised by the committee
(photo on
page 02)
. It was attended by
representatives of various religions,
including the Allied Coordinating
Committee of IslamicNGOs and
MalaysianConsultative Council of
Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism,
SikhismandTaoism. Also present
were Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh
andTaoist leaders.
Najib said hewas surprised that
26%of Americans believedUS
President BarackObama was a
Muslim, as revealed in a survey by
Time
magazine recently. “Thismeans
there is a lot of ignorance in the
world,” he said, adding that it was
important to know the beauty of other
people’s religions and the fundamental
values of one’s own religion.
He said in theMalaysian context,
wise considerationsmust be taken to
avoid controversy or tensionwhich
could lead to cracks or serious
problems in the relationship among
different races. It is also necessary to
deal with challenges such as in terms
of the choice of religious terms to be
used by people of different faiths.
“The committee is a very important
platformor mechanismbecause there
aremany things whichwe need to
discuss heart to heart, in amuhibbah
environment, within closed doors.
“Because, if wewere tomake a
statement in the open, it would be very
difficult for us to change our stand
without feeling a loss of face or
embarrassed, as we have to
compromise and all. Andwe don’t
want others to add insult to injury by
commenting on the open statement
that we havemade, and the issue
becomes heated further,” he said.
He said in his capacity as the head
of government, hewelcomed any
proposal or advice from the committee
andwill consider it accordingly. Najib
said the committee could also organise
programmes which could involve all
religions such as in handling teenagers,
drug addicts or solving problems faced
by the disabled.
He also said hewill provide some
allocations to the committee because
unity and harmonywere as important
as development and economic growth.
“We have a lot of examples where
developed countries were destroyed
because they could not tackle these
issues. We do not want to become like
Bosnia Herzegovina, Northern Ireland
or other places.
“Because in this world there are
many
orang kepala tak betul
(unreasonable people), even in
developed countries, having an
intention to burn theHolyQuran” he
said.
Reuterspix