This is how empires rise and fall,the end mahatir the begining of people's power

(Reuters) - New Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak suffered an early blow after just four days in power when the opposition scored a big win in a tense by-election that was billed as a referendum on his premiership. Facing the worst recession since the Asian financial crisis of a decade ago, voters turned out in large numbers in Perak in a parliamentary election triggered by the death of the MP. PAS said the result in which its majority for that seat rose to 2,789 votes from 1,566 votes was a judgment by the people of a putsch staged by Najib this year to seize power in the state. "People are just sick with the political turmoil in Perak and this is an indictment on them (the government)," PAS deputy president Nasharudin Mat Isa said after the results. The Barisan Nasional coalition that Najib heads has ruled Malaysia for 51 years and managed one win today in a state assembly seat in Sarawak but lost another in Kedah. The results were in line with expectations and showed that Najib and Umno, the lead party in the ruling coalition, have failed to reconnect with voters after a poor showing in elections a year ago. "The results show that Umno can no longer hope to be successful campaigning mainly on ethnic nationalist issues on the back of an economic crisis and governance issues," said Ibrahim Suffian, of the Merdeka Centre, an independent pollster. Overall, nearly 100,000 voters were eligible to cast ballots today in the three polls in this Southeast Asian country of 27 million people, where the majority are ethnic Malays but where ethnic Chinese and Indians account for about 35 per cent. Turnout in Perak was 75 per cent, more than that in the 2008 general election when the government stumbled to its biggest ever election losses, ceding control of five states and losing its once iron-clad two-thirds parliamentary majority. Voting in Perak, where the state mentri besar ousted by Najib was the opposition candidate, took place amid a heavy police presence as hundreds of chanting rival supporters faced off outside polling stations. As evening fell and the votes were counted, riot police formed up behind barbed wire on a rugby field overlooked by a colonial mansion outside the election centre to face thousands of flag-waving PAS supporters. There were no reports of violence, as backers of PAS, which is a member of the opposition three-party Pakatan Rakyat bloc, greeted their victory with shouts of "God is Great". The loss in Perak marks the third parliamentary by-election vote that has gone against the BN since elections in 2008 when it recorded its worst-ever result in state and national elections, losing its two-thirds parliamentary majority. Najib, who took over from lacklustre premier Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, has promised economic reforms as export-dependent Malaysia faces up to the impact of the global financial crisis that has slashed demand for its products. Expectations of reform from Najib are high and he looks set to name a Cabinet later this week that could include news faces to push through much needed economic change. Today's poll losses could, however, hit markets, financial analysts said, due to concerns over whether Najib would be in full control of his government as he undertakes planned changes to Malaysia's huge state-controlled companies. "The concerns about the longevity of the current government and the possibility of a significant change in corporate dynamics longer term might spook the market near term," Deutsche Bank said in a report published today. 2. Firstly, Abdullah was the candidate that he picked to be the PM when he retired. If he thinks that Abdullah does not have what it takes, why chose him. In this aspect failure to do a proper succession planning is probably Mahathir biggest failure. 3. Mahathir has implied and said many times that Abdullah is corrupt. He implied that Pak Lah brought his family members into the administration and influences his administration. He has said many times that KJ is also corrupt. What Mahathir failed to show is any evidence of corruption. He failed to make a police report. All he did was merely making life difficult for him. In fact, I believe he is the hand behind the scene that led to Abdullah being pushed to step down. 4. Indirectly Mahathir had actually condoned the alleged corruption practice. It is partly because of him UMNO and BN has weakened. I would not want to say it but there is enough stories that goes around to show that when Mahathir was the PM, he was involved behind the scene on many immoral and illegal activity. Just look at the judiciary issue. 5. Only last week Mahathir said Najib was wrong when he seize power in Perak and now he says that he is not a lawyer and his view is probably wrong. This is a spineless politician. He is not thinking about the good of the country. He is not bothered about what is right or what is wrong. My own assessment is that his attack on Pak Lah is purely personal in nature. Indirectly his criticism made life difficult for Pak Lah. We could see Pak Lah sincerity in greeting Mahathir during the recent UMNO General Assembly and we could see how Mahathir reacted. 6. My own personal view is that Mahathir attack on Pak Lah is unwarranted. It is purely unprofessional. If the issue is abuse of power or corruption, I believe it was the same before, recent past and in the future as long as BN is leading the country. In current state of affairs, I believe PAS is more honest and trustworthy. As for Mahathir, well may I suggest that he retires peacefully. He needs to have peace with himself and Allah.  Beverly Hills, California --- America, a land, a culture and a people of many virtues, is not without major flaws. One is that it worships money to excess. Another is that it has permitted the debilitating rise of a nasty criminal class working in the financial sector through misdirected compensation schemes and morally flawed structures fueled by ungodly incentives. And it tends to blame foreigners when it gets into big trouble. The worship of money will wane because in the foreseeable future there will be less of it to go around: America and the world are in the process of experiencing what might be called a major economic restructuring. The adoration of money managers who created the phantom myth of theoretical wealth is over as their world starts to crash around them. Surely, criminal prosecution would be just, but only in the most egregious cases (there isn't enough jail space for all the money miscreants). The problem of blaming foreigners for our troubles is harder to fix -- but must be met with forceful reason. The practice must be stopped. We are all in this miserable mess together; erroneously pointing the finger of blame at economies that, in part, hold our fate in their hands (such as China and Japan) is stupid and self-defeating. History lesson: In the decade of the 90s, America underwent a serious recession, especially in California. Our first instinct was to indulge in more finger-pointing than reforming. Two targets were especially bashed. One was the Japanese for letting their economy dramatically droop and thus sagging their demand for our products. Another focus of ire was the illegal workers from south of our border who rich Americans hired to paint their houses and pick their crops and then let our underpaid cops and border agents arrest for being illegal. It was an endless and cruel un-merry-go-round. Time can clarify that the problem wasn't the Japanese or the Latinos all along, but it was -- mainly -- us. The economy was righted, the Japanese were re-honored, and the "illegals," basically, rehired. All thus became better when the foreign-bashing stopped and the serious self-examination began. China is not remotely responsible for our mess to the extent that we are. It is true that China can and should do more -- stimulate their vast internal economy with all the dough they've piled up selling us their products and then return the favor by starting to buy more of ours. And Japan is certainly not to blame for the explosion of our housing and mortgage markets -- as if its super-duper low interest rates were some kind of Oriental conspiracy to pump laughing gas into our economic bubble. But it is true that Tokyo needs to get off its duff and reform its own economy: Retreating from globalization and returning to some kind of pre-Meiji era cocoon is a fantasy-island proposition. Unless and until Asia and America -- not to mention Europe -- accept that we are all in this muck together, and that we will either survive as a global family or hang individually as separate parochial national interests, we are in even more serious trouble. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown had it about right the other day. His speech before a joint session of the U.S. Congress was barely noticed by the American mass media but it deserved much more attention and comment. His pitch -- in beautiful English which we note in passing has few rhetorical equals in the world -- was simple and intelligent. No flood has ever been turned back by pulling up bridges. If each nation reverts to protecting its home industries and economies from international competition, the perfect negative storm of worldwide depression will be created. Intelligent bilateralism and cooperative multilateralism now are the only sunshine formulas capable of penetrating the darkness and cleaning up the rot. Reaching out across oceans and cultures and economies is the prescription for better economic health. The voodoo economics of higher import duties and closed markets will only deepen the contagion, not protect nations from it. To advance and escape the current crisis, the best leaders must ban together and take a common stance against fear, incompetence and excessive national interest. America, fortunately, has a brilliant new president not yet burned out by the job, though, perhaps, the jury of public opinion could turn sour on him at any time, and the American Congress seems a grand cauldron of bitter bile. The current Chinese government, on its successful past performance, retains global credibility, but its leaders must stay bold, not retreat into half-measures, much less Mao-like semi-isolation. Politically, Tokyo is a mess yet again: the ruling party is totally out of gas but the opposition doesn't know how to get out of second gear. India can be part of the solution but faces a nationwide election to decide on a new government, so everything is on hold -- and India, probably, will always be India.This is how empires rise and fall, pulling our fortunes along with them. Start with virgin territory: back in 1957, the Rosen brothers of Baltimore flew over Cape Coral, Fla., in a plane, liked what they saw, paid $678,000 for the farmland and started dredging 400 miles (640 km) of canals, which is more than Venice can claim. It was a peaceful place for old people — Cape Coma, folks called it, until about five years ago, when the gold rush began. College kids were waiting tables to buy condos and flip them; speculators got into bidding wars on unbuilt houses; the price would triple just in the time it took to build. Numbers made no sense; people got drunk and reckless. And then they got crushed. Cape Coral–Fort Myers, once the third fastest growing metro area in the country, last year became the foreclosure capital of America. Marc Joseph grew up here, the Realtor son of a Realtor dad. He watched the market go mad and had his revelation: now is the moment to get back in — and stake your claim. At 41, he did not expect to be driving around Cape Coral in an old church bus that he bought off Craigslist, painted dollar green and emblazoned with the motto "ForeclosureToursRUs.com." But most people had no idea how to buy a house from a bank, and many were too scared to try, so he decided to lead tours of the new economic frontier. He is a revivalist for this apocalyptic age, living an American story as old as the pilgrims and the 49ers and every pioneer who ever saw opportunity where everyone else saw only ruin. This morning he has prospective snowbirds from Spain, Ontario ("We just can't ignore these prices"), Boston and Mingo Junction, Ohio, where another steel mill is about to close. "Opportunity is banging at your door," Joseph tells them, and he'd sound like any cheesy salesman if he weren't so attached to this place and so angry at what was done to it; it's as if his house had been burned down by reckless kids playing with matches and he's building it back up again board by board. It's gotten so bad that the courts have had to hire extra judges to handle the 1,000 foreclosures a day — that works out to roughly one every 30 seconds. But those expecting to see buzzards circling overhead will be surprised. As quickly as one myth dies, another rises in its place, and Joseph is an oracle. It's when you buy that determines what money you make, he tells the fortune hunters on his bus. "A scary time? I'd say it's an opportunity. But it wouldn't be an opportunity if it weren't a scary time," he says. The speculators are back — but they've changed; he has investors up North who are buying houses sight unseen, for cash. (The conditions? No mold, no Chinese drywall.) And then there are the newly pissed off and liberated: the guy in his 40s who's tired of watching his IRA shrivel, who calls and says, "I'm coming down," who wants six houses at $50,000 each, nice flat homes that he can rent to people who are sick of shoveling snow or climbing stairs. That's less than the land used to sell for; it's as if you get the house for free.