cavingliz non-cave albums

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Bersih 3.0 28-4-2012

Saturday 28 April 2012 was another historic day in Malaysia. It was the day of Bersih 3.0.

The venue was Dataran Merdeka. A fitting place, Independence Square, where Malaya became independent. The government tried to move Bersih to one of the stadiums but this was not wanted. And just one day before, 27th, the Magistrate’s Court issued a court order barring Bersih 3.0 from the vicinity of Dataran Merdeka until May 1. The ban includes roads leading to the iconic landmark. As Teresa Kok (my MP) wrote, "What are the government so afraid of? Why can’t the rakyat gather and call for free and fair elections?".

Teresa also wrote "I regret to read the decision of the Home Minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein, to ‘legitimise’ a police crackdown on tomorrow’s Bersih 3.0 rally. Given Hishamuddin had claimed only last week that Bersih 3.0 was not a threat to national security, why the sudden change of heart and policy on the public gathering? What has changed?

The Home Minister’s U-turn decision regarding the peaceful assembly planned this Saturday (28 April 2012), is symptomatic of the Malaysian government’s lack of respect towards its electorate and its high-handedness in dealing with dissenting views. This change of approach by the Home Minister is yet another case of flip-flop decision making, at the very last minute, by the Barisan Nasional government". See complete article.

On Saturday 28 I got to the area (by train) almost 2 hours before the event.

Shirt logos

A rare sight in daytime - no traffic !

The Unit Amal (PAS Security Unity) were there to protect participants. They are disciplined, well mannered and trained volunteers. This years they were wearing dark red.

People were walking in from Brickfields. It was very peaceful

There were surprisingly few helicopters.

The police were watching. There were various banners

Many people were wearing the yellow shirts with yellow accessories. Quite a few people were in green, in protest against Lynas. One lady handed me a green (Lynas) balloon. Some people wore yellow flowers

Yellow angry bird, and the green hair below is anti Lynas

The atmosphere was great. I hung around Central Market area, then before 2pm, the official start, I moved to HSBC and the road leading to Dataran Merdeka. The police were blocking the road to traffic.

By HBSC the road was blocked by the sitting protestors. There were constant chants of 'bersih'.

Looking towards Dataran

At 2pm the crowds sang the National Anthem. Soon after, thousands of people started walking from Central Market up towards Kota Raya. Everything that I saw was peaceful. Several people wanted to explain the event to me, at first not realising that I live here.

These are lawyers from the Malaysian bar. They were there to help any person who was arrested.

The police around Central Market formed a chain across the road and stood in the hot sun for a long time. I'm not sure why. Then they marched off

People started posing in front of the police

Dataran Merdeka was barricaded off, but the protestors broke through, and then the police retaliated with tear gas and water cannons. As usual this was soon picked up by Al Jazeera and BBC tv news.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Aeon - Jusco - opens at Station 18, Ipoh, Perak

I am not a shopper and don't like shopping. On 30 March 2012 I was in Ipoh, Perak, and my friend Hong had to get some groceries, so I suggested we go to the new Aeon which had only opened the day before.

Located at Station 18, off Jalan Pasir Puteh, it is now Perak’s largest shopping mall.

The five-storey Aeon, or Jaya Jusco had only opened its doors to the public on the 29th, so I thought it would be a good chance to see it, as it was a Friday afternoon, and I knew the place would be crowded over the weekend (it was apparently, I heard there were major jams in the area).

Front view, and looking down on the front

Roof top entrance
We got our groceries and I must admit we didn't spend much time checking out the mall as neither of us like shopping centres or crowds.

I was more interested by the views from the roof. Parts of the roof top car park had really high walls so there was no view, but as we drove down to the lower floors, I managed to see the limestone hills of Gunung Rapat area.

These shops are still empty
View of the limestone hills and Gunung Rapat

Saturday, March 24, 2012

landslides on Jln Robson March 2012

On 7 March 2012 there were major floods in Kuala Lumpur. I was in London at the time so only read about it in the Star, and read that there had been landslides along Jalan Robson. These created huge traffic jams, so I was thankful to be away.

Star report 9 March, "Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) officials were on high alert at Jalan Robson, which was reopened yesterday following its closure for cleaning and safety reasons after mudslides on Wednesday night.
A DBKL official in charge of post-flood clearing up said if heavy rains recurred, they would have to close the road again because the earth there was still very soft.
The mudslides happened between 8.30pm and 9pm at three locations on a 500m stretch of the road.
Jalan Robson resident Datuk Amir Singh said the road had experienced repeated mudslides.
He complained that his house would usually get flooded when it poured as the shallow drains along the road became clogged with soil and would overflow."

When I returned one week later, not much had been cleared. The road up to Thean Hou temple was still closed. The following weekend the road was closed for maintenance work and for days after the road was covered in mud.

Several trees around my condo had gone and there were smaller landslides along my road.

Video on the landslides by the Star.

15 March and the road to Thean Hou temple was closed

Jln Robson 15 Mar

Landslide on my road

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Kites around my Kuala Lumpur condo

There are an increasing number of kites around my condo near Kuala Lumpur. I think they are Brahminy kites. They have annnoying "mewing" call. In the mornings they come swooping down the valley and the green parrots always give piercing alarm calls.

This morning when I looked out I was suprised to see a whole flock of birds circling around in the distance. Most of them seemed to be kites though there were a few crows mixed in. I've never seen a big group like this before.

One bird sits in a tree opposite my kitchen. It sits there for up to 4 hours.

Photos are not good as I don't have a good camera.

Some of these might be crows, though luckily there are none roosting in my area

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Helicopters passing my condo from Sungai Besi

I read this news with mixed feelings.........The Sungai Besi Airport will not be closed yet. It made headline news in The Sun 2 Feb 2012.

"The Sungai Besi Airport will not be closed so soon after all, as its two main users, the Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) and the police Air Wing, have won a reprieve. 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) – the government-owned master developer of Bandar Malaysia – has agreed that the airport could continue to be operational for "all government aircraft and VVIP helicopters" for the foreseeable future."

My condo seems to be on the flight path for the helis when flying from the air base to the city. Some days they go round and round and round for ages. Sometimes they are so low I could almost shake hands with the pilot!! Considering my condo is on a hill I wonder why they fly over it.

The Royal Air Police Unit Malaysia (Unit Udara PDRM) (UUP) is a special unit of Royal Malaysian Police & they look after national security by surveillance and patrol from the air. They fly the (red & white) Eurocopter Squirrel AS-355 F2 and AS-355 N2 helicopters.

The RMAF (Tentera Udara Di Raja Malaysia) (TUDM) fly the Nuri (Sea Kings) and Blackhawk helis which are the more humped ones. The Nuri (Sikorsky S-61A-4) will be phased out this year and replaced by the Eurocopter EC725.

On the 16 Jan 2012 I heard a heli hovering for ages. It was circling round in the cemetery at the top of my road and then hovered close to the ground before coming down. I don't know what they were watching but I could see men hanging out of the doors looking at the ground. These photos are No 52 onwards (9M-PHL Polis Diraja Malaysia ).

And when there have been street protests or prominent court cases the helis are again out in force.

See album on the Merdeka helicopters.