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IS Uses Malay-Language In Push For New Recruits In Southeast Asia

KUALA LUMPUR — The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group is in an “aggressive mode” in reaching out to Malay-speaking communities by making reading materials in the Malay language more accessible online, a move that could have wide-ranging ramifications for countries in South-east Asia.

The Malaysian authorities say ISIS is spreading its propaganda through more “localised news reports” and “articles” that glorify its fighters, especially those from Malaysia and Indonesia who have travelled to Syria to take up arms with the militant group.

These “articles” are uploaded on ISIS websites in Malay, which also share information on ISIS activities in the provinces they conquered.

One of the websites is a portal containing articles taken from the ISIS magazine Dabiq, which are then translated into Bahasa Indonesia and Malay.

Online recruiters in Malaysia and Indonesia also use forums and blogs to reach out to potential recruits.

Malaysia’s top counter-terrorism official, Mr Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay, said the ISIS recruiters would include articles on martyrdom and life in the organisation.

“They feed their sympathisers with fairy tales,” said Mr Ayob.

It is understood that there are currently about six to seven ISIS websites, forums and blogs in Malay.

Mr Ayob said these websites use servers abroad to avoid detection from the authorities in both countries.

The ISIS social-media unit has also taken the initiative to include Malay subtitles in its radio programmes broadcast in English and Arabic through ISIS’ official radio station, Bayan, which was made available on YouTube three months ago.

A check on YouTube, which provides access to recorded ISIS radio programmes, showed that Bayan attracts between 700 and 2,000 visitors.

International Islamic University Malaysia’s Political Science and Islamic Studies lecturer Ahmad Muhammady said the emergence of ISIS websites in Malay indicates an “offensive approach” taken by the terror group.

“Before this, they took a ‘defensive approach’, that is to respond to the accusations made against them, and it was done either in Arabic, English or Indonesian. Now, they changed tact,” Mr Ahmad said.

“To me, it is not surprising. Currently, the term ‘jihad media’ (ilami jihadi) is getting popular among the pro-ISIS chatters. This term is coined … to encourage young people to join the ISIS media team to take an offensive approach against their ‘enemies’.”

Last month, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong told a regional security forum in Singapore that South-east Asia is a key recruitment centre for ISIS.

“ISIS has so many Indonesian and Malaysian fighters that they form them into a unit by themselves — the Katibah Nusantara (Malay Archipelago Combat Unit),” said Mr Lee, who also warned that ISIS could establish a base somewhere in the region and pose a “serious threat to the whole of South-east Asia”.

His remarks followed the recent arrests of two self-radicalised Singaporean youths, including M Arifil Azim Putra Norja’i, 19, who had planned intensively to attack key facilities and assassinate government leaders if he was unable to leave Singapore for Syria.

Mr Ahmad said ISIS’ use of Malay-language materials as a recruitment tool was a worrying development for Malaysia. “Currently, there is an increase in interest among youths in rural areas in the east coast, especially among secondary and college students,” he said.

He said the use of Malay as the medium was all about penetrating deeper into Malaysian society.

“Those who are not educated in English still rely on the Malay website as a source of reference.”

The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) said so far, no ISIS websites in Malay have been shut down.

Its monitoring and enforcement division head Zulkarnain Mohd Yasin said MCMC was aware of the emergence of the ISIS sites.

“So far, we have not blocked any such website, but we did take down a few videos on YouTube,” he told The Malaysian Insider.

Source: www.todayonline.com

June 17, 2015
Dirty Secrets Of A Former Air Stewardess

People used to watch as she strutted through the airport. Some would even whip out their phones and cameras to take photos of Joanne and her colleagues walking towards the plane.

It’s part and parcel of life as air crew. Well, just a small part of it, says Joanne, a former flight stewardess.

“People think, ‘Wah, so glamorous’. Little do they know that I had to clean toilets on the plane or clean up after passengers when they vomit,” says the 25-year-old, who declines to use her real name.

As soon as the air crew enter the aircraft, it is crunch time. Seats need to be reset. Headsets need replacing in the seat pockets. Overhead compartments need to be scanned for forgotten items and security threats.

Complete this, and one still has to deal with the passengers themselves.

“I’ve had things thrown in my face when we could not fulfil last-minute requests for seat changes. People think that because they paid for the flight, they deserve everything.”

Worse still are people who try to touch her or take voyeuristic photos.

Then, there are also the strangest encounters.

Once, drunk passenger on an Australia-bound flight grew rowdy and helped himself to a bottle of wine in the plane’s galley. He started getting touchy-feely too, but Joanne firmly made him return to his seat.

Says Joanne: “He was this close to being restrained.”

BOMB THREAT

Once, a man accused a group of passengers of carrying a bomb on the plane, shocking others in the process. On the pilot’s orders, she searched the passenger and found drugs instead.

Another time, an adult passenger went on a hunger strike because he was unhappy with the food. Joanne had to coax him to eat as part of her “good service”.

“It’s like being a nanny, a security guard and a waitress combined,” says Joanne with a laugh.

There is a small cabin space for crew to rest. But sometimes, she doesn’t really bother to rest because it might ruin her make-up and hairdo, she confesses.

Cabin crew take pride in being professional, she says.

“No matter how tired or frustrated you are, once you leave the crew cabin, you have to put on a smile,” she says.

Despite the difficulties, working as a flight stewardess can be a rewarding experience because of the travel perks and relatively high salary.

She has visited nearly every country in the world and got to interact with thousands of people in her two-year stint.

“I loved trying out the cuisines of the various countries, and it all tasted so good!” she says, singling out Greece and India as memorable gastronomic stops.

She says she has fantastic memories and good stories to tell of wonderful people and passengers.

Sheepishly, she says that despite the difficulties during her flight, when she gets a simple “thank you” from a passenger for service rendered, it cancels out all the negatives.

Joanne left the job as she found greener pastures elsewhere, she says. But she adds that she has no regrets.

“It is quite an experience, and I have learnt a lot about dealing with people.”

SECRETS OF THE TRADE

1 Study your procedures well so you are prepared for every situation. Every passenger relies on you to know what to do.

2 Carry an extra uniform on board in case of food spillage and airsick passengers — which are very common.

3 Flight crew are not spared from the possibilities of lost luggage. Make sure you keep a bag of essential items with you so that you can continue working on your return flight.

Source: www.tnp.sg

June 17, 2015
Team Singapore Scores Distinction For SEA Games Showing

It had initially begun as a quest for 50 gold medals to celebrate Singapore’s Golden Jubilee this year, but Team Singapore’s 749-member contingent at the 28th SEA Games had emphatically blasted the ball out of the park, ending the 19-day multi-sports event with a record haul of 84 gold, 73 silver and 102 bronze medals across 36 sports.

It is the Republic’s best showing at the SEA Games since its previous record of 50 gold at the 1993 Games, and it earned them second spot on the medal tally, just behind Thailand.

Scoring Team Singapore’s report card with an “eight or nine” out of 10, Singapore’s chefs de mission Tan Eng Liang and Nicholas Fang attributed the unprecedented haul — a huge 170 per cent jump from the 34 gold won at the last edition in Myanmar in 2013 — to several factors.

The main one, said Mr Tan, was the careful selection of sports and events. It was a sentiment echoed by Singapore National Olympic Council (SNOC) secretary general Chris Chan, who added: “We zeroed in on the three categories (compulsory sports, Olympic and Asian Games sports, other sports) that suited our needs. If you spend S$300 plus million (S$324.5 million), you want to do pretty well.”

Other factors Mr Tan highlighted included the commitment of Singaporean athletes, support from their family members and government agencies, as well as the Final Push — a one-year support scheme that was introduced to disburse some S$4 million to athletes training full-time for the Games.

“We also can’t overstate the importance of financial funding, the work that the sports institute has done,” said Mr Fang, referring to the Singapore Sports Institute.

“In the past if you think about this kind of high level support (sports science, biomechanics etc) maybe it was restricted to your key sports, but now SSI is trying to make this available to all the sports that are trying to raise their game.”

A total of 36 sports were contested in the 28th SEA Games, with Team Singapore medalling in 33 sports. The top six performers were: Aquatics (swimming, synchronised swimming and water polo) with 26 gold, sailing (10), canoeing (7), table tennis (6), wushu (6) and shooting (5) — producing 60 gold, or about 70 per cent of the total gold medal haul. At the last Games in Naypyidaw, these six sports won just 25 gold medals, with aquatics leading the pack with 12 gold.

Three sports — football, tennis and petanque — did not win any medals at these Games, with the Under-23 footballers drawing the most criticism from fans after failing to advance beyond the group stage. Coach Aide Iskandar resigned immediately after their last match against Indonesia.

In contrast, the national men’s football team stole a point from their 2018 World Cup qualifier against Japan last night, holding the Asian giants to a goalless draw in Saitama. Said Mr Tan: “I’m disappointed but you can’t take away the fact that they (athletes in sports that did not medal) really played their guts out. I expect them to do detailed analysis and implement something if they want to improve.”

Source: www.todayonline.com

June 17, 2015
Import And Sale Of Emerging Tobacco Products Will Begin Dec 15

The import and sale of tobacco products such as smokeless cigarettes will be banned from Dec 15 this year, and the ban will be extended to cover more products such as oral snuff from August next year.

Announced by the Ministry of Health (MOH) yesterday, the move, which will be carried out in two phases, comes on the back of a ban on shisha last year, as part of efforts to clamp down on “emerging” tobacco products.

The ban is a “pre-emptive measure to protect public health against the known and potential harms of such products”, said the MOH in a media release. It is also “aimed at ensuring that the targeted emerging tobacco products do not gain a foothold or become entrenched in the Singapore market”.

The first phase of the ban targets emerging tobacco products currently not available in Singapore. They include smokeless cigars, smokeless cigarillos or smokeless cigarettes, dissolvable tobacco or nicotine.

Any product containing nicotine or tobacco that may be used topically for application, by implant or injected into any parts of the body will also be banned, while any solution or substance where tobacco or nicotine is a constituent, that is intended to be used with an electronic nicotine delivery system or a vaporiser, commonly referred to as e-cigarettes, will also be banned. Tobacco-containing products, tobacco derivatives, or medicinal products registered under the Medicines Act are excluded from the ban.

From Aug 1 next year, the ban will extend to emerging tobacco products already in the local market. “This is to allow for businesses to adjust their operating models and deplete their existing stocks of such products,” the MOH said. The affected products include nasal snuff, oral snuff, and gutkha, khaini and zarda, which are chewable tobacco products.

The ban will be implemented via Section 15 of the Tobacco (Control of Advertisements and Sale) Act. The Act was amended in 2010 to empower the Minister for Health to prohibit the import and sale of such emerging tobacco products. Since then, the authorities had been studying the implementation of the ban. This included ensuring the ban complies with Singapore’s international trade obligations, the MOH said.

An undergraduate who declined to give his name said he tried khaini in Malaysia last year. “The ban doesn’t really affect me, if I really want to consume khaini, I’ll just cross the border to Malaysia and have it there,” said the 23-year-old, who has been smoking since he was 19.

Source: www.todayonline.com

June 16, 2015
Passenger In Shangri-La Shooting Gets Caning And Jail For Drug Offences

One of the two car passengers in last month’s shooting near Shangri-La Hotel was sentenced to eight years’ jail and three strokes of the cane yesterday for possession and consumption of drugs.

Mohamed Ismail, 31, pleaded guilty to three charges and had seven other charges taken into consideration in his sentencing. He and fellow car passenger Muhammad Syahid Mohamed Yasin, 26, were initially charged with one count each of heroin trafficking on June 1.

Both were in a red Subaru Impreza driven by Mohamed Taufik Zahar in the early hours of May 31. Mohamed Taufik was shot dead by the police after he suddenly accelerated while being questioned at a checkpoint near Shangri-La Hotel — where a high-level security conference was being held — and endangered police officers. A bag containing drugs was found in the vehicle.

Yesterday, Mohamed Ismail pleaded guilty to possession of not less than 0.27g of heroin and not less than 1.41g of methamphetamine along Orange Grove Road on May 31, as well as consumption of morphine.

According to court documents, he had bought the heroin and methamphetamine at Geylang Lorong 15 on May 29 from someone called “Ah Boy”. He paid S$480 for the drugs.

For the morphine consumption charge, Mohamed Ismail admitted to consuming heroin in the toilet of his Marsiling Crescent home about eight hours before the shooting. He had heated and dissolved the heroin before injecting the mixture up his left arm with a syringe. His urine sample was found to contain morphine, the result of his body breaking down the heroin.

Mohamed Ismail was previously convicted of consuming methamphetamine, also known as “Ice”, in 2003, as well as of possessing a controlled drug in 2012. He was also admitted to a drug rehabilitation centre in 2012 for morphine consumption.

The other charges taken into consideration during sentencing included failure to report for urine tests and failure to stop at a police roadblock.

Muhammad Syahid, who was charged last week with an additional count of instigating Mohamed Taufik to act rashly and endanger the safety of two police officers, is expected to plead guilty tomorrow.

Muhammad Syahid, who also has previous drug-related offences, allegedly shouted “Jalan, jalan” at Mohamed Taufik, who crashed into a concrete barrier. If convicted of acting rashly to endanger the personal safety of others, he may be jailed up to six months and fined a maximum of S$2,500.

Source: www.todayonline.com

June 16, 2015