Malaysia Day is a public Holiday

KUALA LUMPUR: Beginning next year, Sept 16, which is Malaysia Day has been declared a public holiday.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said the day would involve activities that would foster the 1Malaysia spirit.

He added this meant Malaysians would have a twin celebration, to commemorate the country’s independence starting next year

Najib said National Day on Aug 31 would be celebrated with formal events such as a parade to commemorate the historical moment and it would remind the people about the struggle in achieving independence from the colonists.

He made the announcement during the question-and-answer session at Parliament on Monday.

Najib said Sabah and Sarawak, which joined Malaysia in 1963 and the formation of Malaysia as an independent country was a very important moment in history.

“We want the joy and sorrows of the people in Sabah and Sarawak to be felt by the people in the Peninsula,” he said.

“Therefore, I would like to announce to the people of Malaysia that the Cabinet has recently made the decision to celebrate Hari Malaysia on Sept 16 starting 2010.”

Malaysia Day would be celebrated with events that would foster closer unity, understanding between the different races and community success and achievement through sports, social culture and arts, to spur the 1Malaysia spirit, he added.

adapted from The Star; http://www.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/10/19/nation/20091019103509&sec=nation

1Malaysia Lotus F1 Team 2010

1Malaysia: The making of the Late Yasmin Ahmad's "chocolate" and the full version

USM 40th Convocation

The 40th convocation of Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) will be held from Wednesday, 12 August 2009 till Sunday, 16 August 2009 at the Tuanku Syed Putra Hall, USM, Pulau Pinang.

Visit http://registry.usm.my/konvo/default.asp for datails

NGV blast

SUBANG JAYA: An NGV-powered Proton Waja exploded in the car park at an apartment in Serdang Jaya yesterday, killing its driver and destroying three other vehicles.

K. Mailvaganan, 43, was found slumped in the front seat of the car at about 6.45am by police officers who were alerted to an explosion at Skyvilla Apartments.

It is learnt that Mailvaganan, a limousine driver, might have fallen asleep inside the car with the engine running.

A security guard at the apartment said he heard the loud explosion before seeing a cloud of black smoke from one of the CCTV images.

Selangor police chief Datuk Khalid Abu Bakar said that based on initial police investigations, there was no element of foul play.

Adapted from : http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/7/5/nation/4260042&sec=nation

Government doctors still not being paid their due

“Deal for government docs reasonable” (The Star, May 12) by the PSD which stated that the initial salary of government Medical Officers was the highest compared with those of other schemes of service in the public sector????? Is it a myth or reality?

DATO’ DR KHOO KAH LIN, President, MMA said....

1.R egards to the on-call allowance, we would like to point out that the RM150 per night is only for medical officers doing “active” on-call duty, i.e. working 16 hours per day beyond their normal working hours

2. Not all medical officers are given the opportunity to do RM80 per hour for locum work, as the extended clinic hours (5pm to 9pm) only involve 16 polyclinics and the locum work is mostly done by the doctors working at a particular polyclinic and doctors working at other polyclinics.

3. The actual UD44 salary at P1T1 is RM3,028.90 with fixed allowances of RM1,450.00 (including critical allowance of RM750, housing allowance of RM400, elaun khidmat awam of RM300 and COLA RM100 to RM300 depending on the location) and not a salary of RM6,000 per month

Conclusion : MMA has repeatedly requested the Government to introduce a separate service scheme for government doctors from that of other civil servants, as a doctor’s undergraduate training is longer at between five and six years, compared with other professionals.

Ref: http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/6/3/focus/4003932&sec=focus